Daniel Carrera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > 1) How complete is the set of ebuilds? For reference: I consider Mandrake and > RedHat to be fairly complete distributions. They carry most of what anyone > would want.
If you consider RH to be fairly complete you're going to be well pleased with Gentoo. It's very rare that I have to go and find the source to something myself. > 2) How quickly do ebuilds follow new code releases? Will I always be stuck a > version behind or will I be able to try out new stuff soon after it comes out? Well, it's a lot quicker than Debian :-) . On gentoo you have the option to be stable, but use the occasional bleeding edge thing too - so Xfree 4.2.99 has been available for a while as an option. I'm not sure when 4.3.0 will be available as an ebuild but I'd put money on it getting into Gentoo before most other distros. > 3) One thing I like about Debian's apt-get is that once you have Debian > installed, you can upgrade to new versions without having to reinstall. This > is in contrast to RPM distros. If I have RedHat 7.3, the best way to move to > 8.0 is to backup my data, wipe the disk and reinstall. > Is Gentoo like Debian in this respect? Pretty much so. What you have to bear in mind is that when some things get upgraded quite a lot of other things need rebuilding as a result. e.g. if qt changes you may need to rebuild your whole kde. It's not really a problem, it just means that the machine works a little bit harder every now and again. > 4) How easy is it to create my own ebuilds? I often like to install from > source, but I'd like to keep the benefits of package management. But that's the point of gentoo - it /is/ building from source. > 5) Is Gentoo really that much faster? Will it make a greater difference on an > old computer (think P133) or on a new computer (think Athlon XP/MP)? That's a good question. Personally I wouldn't want to use it on something as old as a P133, although I think people do. Generally you have to weigh up the time saved having stuff optimised with the time taken for it to build, and the fact that the thing is running slow a lot of the time while it's building. Personally I don't really think gentoo's *that* much faster than e.g. debian - I just like the fact that I get more control over it. -- Richard Watson http://www.opencolo.com/ High Quality, Value for money colocation -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
