Greetings,
On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 2:54 PM, Chris Knadle <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> You're right. Most of what I hear from others concerning Gentoo has
> been negative. Over the years I've heard a litany of complaints about
> Gentoo upgrade issues people have experienced. I have a tremendous
> amount of respect for Gentoo (especially for their documentation), but
> I've got a lot of reservations about using it for anything important.
I use it in production for web (HTTP{,S}) and application server
(J2EE) servicing about 300 users on our intranet; it handles anywhere
from 10-20k requests per day, and about 50k JAX-WS/RS requests from
various other pieces of automated infrastructure. The system is down
less than 5 minutes a year.. let it be known that I am first and
foremost a programmer, and not an infrastructure person -- if I can
manage this feat, it's certainly not related to any particular skill I
might have, but more likely to be a result of great tooling Apache
HTTPD, Tomcat, Linux, Gentoo.
> Just out of curiosity, I'd like your personal take on the following
> link (which concerns a Gentoo developer who is very unhappy with the
> methods used for Gentoo package ownership and maintainership), which
> was posted to LILUG si-sig with the statement:
I like Diego, in fact, I like his work so much that I've donated my
own hard earned cash to help him recover his machine and build a
Gentoo tinderbox ( see http://www.flameeyes.eu/donations ); I think
most of his beefs are right on, and I personally agree with his
methods for quality assurance, i.e. the tinderbox.
> "(This post highlights most of what I've been trying but
> unable to fully articulate about why the distro is completely
> unsuitable for any computer in any datacenter anywhere ever.)"
> http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2010/02/22/what-s-wrong-with-gentoo-anyway
I don't really run into the problems that he outlines because I run
the stable tree on the aforementioned box. I also review the changes
which are about to be installed on the system before I actually
install them. I look at bug reports, I look at blogs. I really only
update packages once a quarter, and I do not replace the kernel unless
I am affected by a specific CVE.
I think also helping matters is that I run unstable Gentoo on 2 boxes
at home.. oops, now 3, including my laptop for work. It's pretty
critical that always keeps working, and I actually update it once per
week. I can not even recall over the past 6 years while working at my
company when I was ever prevented from doing my job due to a Gentoo
issue.
> Look again. He asked for what was "best", not "high performance".
> Not the same thing.
Perhaps you should look again at the OP: "We are not talking comfort
zone, but technical issues like does one distro's HV out preform
another?" -- I'll grant you it is very difficult to navigate the maze
of parenthetical comments and spelling mistakes, but surely I can not
be blamed for saying "" Gentoo would be best because it has the best
performance "" when it is clearly something the OP asked specifically
about.
> The OP is most familiar with Ubuntu, AFAIK has never run Gentoo, and
> you shot him an "off the cuff" answer of "Gentoo is fastest" which is
> not enough information for someone who isn't familiar with it.
Please, Chris, look again at his statements: "We are not talking
comfort zone" -- to me this implies that he is willing to explore new
options to achieve his stated goals, "" performance ""; the answer
wasn't off the cuff, and if the OP really wanted someone to do all of
his research for him then he's probably going to have to pay someone.
I'll wager all the money in my pockets against all the money in your
pockets that he didn't expect a cost/benefit dissertation on the
variety of distributions out there as they pertain to virtualized
environments.
> Gentoo often causes admins pitfalls, and that needs to be considered
> before choosing it. By "selling" Gentoo is this "off the cuff" way
> without explaining anything, I believe you're hurting your own cause
> in the end.
Every distribution has admin pitfalls. I don't think I'm a stupid guy,
but I literally spent an entire day trying to get an Ubuntu system
installed and up to date; this was back in the 8.04 days, and I did so
without a manual. I eventually gave up and asked the guy across the
hall to do it in exchange for a coffee.
Furthermore, my cause is merely to find the path of least resistance.
I know we've talked in person and online before, but I don't think
I've ever come across as some sort of software liberation freedom
fighter (my license of choice is ASL-2, not GPL-*). I like Gentoo
because it quite simply is the most efficient system available. I am
no zealot, and deep down I think that most people /should not/ use it
because, despite what lip service they may pay, they do not actually
want to learn something new on their own -- said skill / passion /
philosophical bent / whatever being pretty much a requisite for my
distro of choice.
Regards,
-Jesse
--
There are 10 types of people in this world, those
that can read binary and those that can not.
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