On Sunday 08 June 2003 16:20, Christopher Sawtell wrote: > I have been most impressed with Gentoo Linux, which is a kind of cross > between Linux and the *BSDs. They have essentially borrowed some of the > better ideas behind the *BSD Ports system while retaining the Linux kernel > etc. This allows _you_ to control the whole updating bit. They, Gentoo > Central -- for want of a better name -- control the ports tree with extreme > rigour, but do keep it up to date really pretty well, with _working_ > programs too what's more. If you want to cut yourself on the bleeding edge > then you can too. They now offer pre-compiled binaries. > > Certainly, Gentoo offers, in my experience, an infinitely superior method > of package management than either of the commonplace alternatives. > > Definitely a much less risky way of doing things than trusting that some > anonymous pfy has got everything correct when he built an rpm file.
Seeing as the compilation / installation is automatic, I really doubt you go thru the code by hand first (no?), then how is this any better than a binary distribution? Is there a reason why one should trust Gentoo developers (or BSD developers, in Jim's case ;-) more than anyone else? Sure, installing packages (whatever form they be in) provided by your distro is a better idea than installing 3rd party apps, I'm not disagreeing. But how is Gentoo (or BSD) unique here? It seems Chris trusts Gentoo developers. And Jim trusts BSD developers. Well I just want to stick my hand up and say, damit, I trust Debian developers! ;-) I would assert that official Debian (stable) packages are controlled just as rigourously, and of just as high a quality as any of these other systems. Would anyone like to disagree? Sure I could mess that all up by installing 3rd party apps (and frequently do, heh ;-) - but why can't I do that, compile 3rd party apps from source, on *BSD or Gentoo? hmmm? Just because your distro of choice provides official packages, controlled by those who control the distro (what a novel concept eh? ;-) .... that doesn't make your distro: a) unique or; b) better in any way that I can tell. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. </rant> Cheers, Gareth ps. all in good fun - I'm just as zealous as the rest of you (hey... where is Jason? can't we expect to see some Mandrake comments added to this? ;-) I'm not trying to start a distro flame war, honest :-) pps. I downloaded Knoppix for the first time the other day (on a 56k modem - so that should be 'the other week', heh ;-) via bittorrent. Bittorrent is impressive. Knoppix more so. My brother has a computer that will only run windows 95, we've tried and failed many times to install various versions of windows and linux - put the Knoppix CD in and it detected everything perfectly, sound,video,network, the lot - all up and running in about a minute. I was very impressed.
