How big / stable is Gentoo community ?

Geico Caveman · External Since: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 312

Hi

I have been considering using Gentoo (attracted by its BSD style package
management system - an acquired taste picked up during a brief dalliance
with FreeBSD) to replace a slackware 10.0 router / firewall / fileserver
machine. I would have stuck to slackware, but the continued lack of a
package manager that handles dependencies properly (like Debian's apt-get
that powers most of my other machines) really is vexing when you need one
new package installed and have to hunt down its dependencies (reminds of
the bad days with Redhat), download them and install them. Debian spoils
you - you no longer need to reinstall everytime a new release comes out.
Further, such an occasion is a chance to learn something new. I have
decided against using FreeBSD as it does not provide full read/write
support for reiserfs and my backups are on reiserfs formatted media.

However, I just read that Gentoo's creator, Daniel Robbins, defected to
Microsoft a few months ago. That news is troubling at two levels - that he
defected at all (not that bad), and that he chose to defect to Microsoft
(this is very wrong - surely Novell or Redhat would have loved to hire
him).

Whatever the real reason, I want to know how "stable" really is the Gentoo
community - after all, its the first newer distribution that I am
considering using (prior experience - Redhat, Debian, Slackware). Is it a
little like Debian, which has a massive worldwide developer / contributor
base and is the "father" distribution to some 150+ other distributions, or
is it a distribution that is showing signs of fading away after a great
start ? The documentation for Gentoo available online is certainly
impressive, and in some cases superior to that of some of the other
distributions I have used, which usually indicates the presence of a large
number of contributors. While that is comforting, I would like to hear your
opinions.

I apologize if the questions provoke a flamewar, but I need to know what
implications has the defection of Daniel Robbins has had for Gentoo. I like
the ports system, and would love to use this distribution, but the need for
a distribution that is going to be around tomorrow, like Debian, or
Slackware, etc. trumps that consideration. Its part of the reason why I
have so far stuck to distributions that have been around for a long time.

GC

Niki Kovacs · External Since: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 342

Le Sat, 22 Apr 2006 02:09:40 -0400, Geico Caveman a écrit :

> I would have stuck to slackware, but the continued lack of a
> package manager that handles dependencies properly (like Debian's apt-get
> that powers most of my other machines) really is vexing when you need one
> new package installed and have to hunt down its dependencies (reminds of
> the bad days with Redhat), download them and install them.

Hi,

Folks here stick with Slack precisely because there is no automatic
dependency handling.

Cheers,

NK

J.O. Aho · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 2216

Geico Caveman wrote:

> However, I just read that Gentoo's creator, Daniel Robbins, defected to
> Microsoft a few months ago. That news is troubling at two levels - that he
> defected at all (not that bad), and that he chose to defect to Microsoft
> (this is very wrong - surely Novell or Redhat would have loved to hire
> him).

He was working for Microsoft as an Linux expert, but some months ago he quit
his work there and went to another company. What Mr Robbins works with don't
affect Gentoo, don't think he does do any real contribution for some years (I
may be wrong here, it's time since I hastily read some docs about him).

> Whatever the real reason, I want to know how "stable" really is the Gentoo
> community - after all, its the first newer distribution that I am
> considering using (prior experience - Redhat, Debian, Slackware).

I would say it's quite big, specially if you do count all the arches as a big
community, of course most people uses x86 based machines, but the PPC
community ain't that small either. The number of Gentoo newsgroups is low,
which IMHO is a draw back, of course there is the web forums, but gentoo.org
is blacklisted at many mail providers, so it can be difficult to register as
you don't get the confirmation mail. There are a great deal of IRC channels,
one for each arch and a few more, all of them you can find at freenode.

The activity is quite high at the bugzilla too, not everything is about bugs,
you can find requests and example ebuilds for not yet supported package.

At least the developers has some good relationships toward developers in the
Debian world and there been direct sharing of patches. The only distro that
isn't higly regarded by the developers I think is ubuntu, as those have
behaved quite badly at some Linux shows against Gentoo.

> Is it a
> little like Debian, which has a massive worldwide developer / contributor
> base and is the "father" distribution to some 150+ other distributions, or
> is it a distribution that is showing signs of fading away after a great
> start ?

I don't know more than mupper that is based on Gentoo, it's really not a
distro but a rescue CD for PPC based machines. The community seems to grow, at
least at Gentoo PPC and Sparc, don't hang around those x86 as people seems to
know each other a lot less.

> The documentation for Gentoo available online is certainly
> impressive, and in some cases superior to that of some of the other
> distributions I have used, which usually indicates the presence of a large
> number of contributors. While that is comforting, I would like to hear your
> opinions.

Lately there has been put on work to uniform all the docs, IMHO a bit bad as
you get x86 examples when you work with other arches, like more the old docs
that was specially written for each arch and could differ more than todays docs.

//Aho

Old Man · External Since: Apr 16, 2004 Posts: 183

Geico Caveman wrote:

> I would have stuck to slackware, but the continued lack of a
> package manager that handles dependencies properly (like Debian's apt-get
> that powers most of my other machines) really is vexing when you need one
> new package installed and have to hunt down its dependencies (reminds of
> the bad days with Redhat), download them and install them. Debian spoils
> you - you no longer need to reinstall everytime a new release comes out.
> Further, such an occasion is a chance to learn something new.

<SNIP>

> I apologize if the questions provoke a flamewar, but I need to know what
> implications has the defection of Daniel Robbins has had for Gentoo.

Right. Al will shortly post 3,000 words to help you out. Enjoy.

--
Old Man

"Sumo Wrestler · External Since: Mar 10, 2006 Posts: 13

Geico Caveman wrote:

> [...] I would have stuck to slackware, but the continued lack of a
> package manager that handles dependencies properly (like Debian's apt-get
> that powers most of my other machines) really is vexing when you need one
> new package installed and have to hunt down its dependencies [...]

For Slackware there is a program called slapt-get that does what
Debian's apt-get does.

Dan C · External Since: Jan 08, 2005 Posts: 1094

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 15:26:29 +0200, Schraalhans Keukenmeester wrote:

<snip>

> Since you mention FreeBSD, just out of curioisity, what in particular
> keeps you from switching to FreeBSD altogether ?

Does the fact that he can't handle package management on Slackware give
you any clues as to his answer? Smile

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

borisq · External Since: Apr 11, 2006 Posts: 2

I used slackware for several years until I discovered Gentoo. As
somebody said, there's slapt-get as a package manager for slackware,
but it doesn't work as well as you want. At least, it doesn't work as
well as apt-get can.

Any way, I think the migration from slackware to gentoo is a good
choice, specially if you want to used as a server or something.
I've been using gentoo on my laptop for a coupe of years, and I'm sure
that I wont back to slackware or anything else.

ANC · External Since: Jan 27, 2006 Posts: 78

Geico Caveman wrote:

> I apologize if the questions provoke a flamewar, but I need to know what
> implications has the defection of Daniel Robbins has had for Gentoo. I
> like the ports system, and would love to use this distribution, but the
> need for a distribution that is going to be around tomorrow, like Debian,
> or Slackware, etc. trumps that consideration. Its part of the reason why I
> have so far stuck to distributions that have been around for a long time.

Gentoo is an excellent distribution evidenced by its large and enthusiastic
userbase.

I don't see the Robbins defection as having any adverse effects on Gentoo
(or any positive effects on MS)

While I think there is some similarity in the skill-level, and so-called
'mindset' of both Gentoo and Slackware users, I think you should ask your
questions in a Gentoo group as I don't think Slack, Debian, RH, etc. users
will be able to give you the exact perspective you are seeking.

anc

ANC · External Since: Jan 27, 2006 Posts: 78

> I apologize if the questions provoke a flamewar, but I need to know what
> implications has the defection of Daniel Robbins has had for Gentoo. I
> like the ports system, and would love to use this distribution, but the
> need for a distribution that is going to be around tomorrow, like Debian,
> or Slackware, etc. trumps that consideration. Its part of the reason why I
> have so far stuck to distributions that have been around for a long time.

Gentoo is an excellent distribution evidenced by its large and enthusiastic
userbase.

I don't see the Robbins defection as having any adverse effects on Gentoo
(or any positive effects on MS)

While I think there is some similarity in the skill-level, and so-called
'mindset' of both Gentoo and Slackware users, I think you should ask your
questions in a Gentoo group as I don't think Slack, Debian, RH, etc. users
will be able to give you the exact perspective you are seeking.

anc

Geico Caveman · External Since: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 312

Niki Kovacs wrote:

> Le Sat, 22 Apr 2006 02:09:40 -0400, Geico Caveman a écrit :
>
>> I would have stuck to slackware, but the continued lack of a
>> package manager that handles dependencies properly (like Debian's apt-get
>> that powers most of my other machines) really is vexing when you need one
>> new package installed and have to hunt down its dependencies (reminds of
>> the bad days with Redhat), download them and install them.
>
> Hi,
>
> Folks here stick with Slack precisely because there is no automatic
> dependency handling.
>
> Cheers,
>
> NK

To each his own, I guess. When your main focus is to use a machine to get
some serious work done and you are a package short, having to hunt down all
its dependencies and then install them by hand and all that, might be
exciting for a while, but it becomes a drag after a while.

Unfortunately, slapt-get does not appear to be a full replacement for
apt-get, and neither is it like ports/pkg_add. Slackware is an excellent
distribution in every other way. IMO, of course.

Steve'o · External Since: May 16, 2004 Posts: 23

Geico Caveman wrote:

> Hi
>
> Debian spoils
> you - you no longer need to reinstall everytime a new release comes out.

Neither do you with slackware, this box started life as 10.0 and has been
updated weekly with current since then, so has gone through 10.1, .2 and
now 11 (soon to be).

Works fine Smile

I last used gentoo a year ago, made a mistake in running some sort of emerge
update which meant instead of doing a total stage 3 it went off and
downloaded and compiled almost everything again after the install, took 12+
hours. Then at the final stage an ebuild failed make **** Error 1 etc

The community were a huge help though, very enthusiastic bunch. Personally
Im sticking with the easier Slackware, but gentoo is worth a punt if you
can spare the time and patience Smile

Why not stick with Debian though? Or maybe a dervivitive like ubuntu /
mepis, Fedora 5 has great reviews, then theres always centos and other RHEL
clones. These have package managers, larges repos and a reasonably solid
support cycle (rhel not fc5).

Geico Caveman · External Since: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 312

Steve'o wrote:

> Geico Caveman wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> Debian spoils
>> you - you no longer need to reinstall everytime a new release comes out.
>
> Neither do you with slackware, this box started life as 10.0 and has been
> updated weekly with current since then, so has gone through 10.1, .2 and
> now 11 (soon to be).
>
> Works fine Smile

Now that sounds promising. I have Slackware 10.0. How do you upgrade ? With
swaret ?

Would merely setting VERSION=current /etc/swaret.conf take care of
everything ?

ANC · External Since: Jan 27, 2006 Posts: 78

Niki Kovacs wrote:

> You might think Debian is easy. apt-get upgrade... and there you go. One
> day you're running hotplug, the next day udev. And then... *** Broken
> packages ***, blam!
>

True if you were running the unstable branch of Debian, maybe even
'testing'. No so for 'stable.'

Doesn't Slackware 'current' often have packages or libs that have not been
fully tested and in beta?

anc

Lowe · External Since: Apr 23, 2006 Posts: 2

> Gentoo users buy into the idea that software is only "good enough" for
> your system if it specifically compiled for it.

No, no, no you are completely wrong, it's like saying that people like
debian because it's old...

>I know I don't have a week waiting for an install to complete.
A base installation takes about 20-30 minutes to complete, and all big
packages available on separate cd as binaries.

Niki Kovacs · External Since: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 342

Le Sun, 23 Apr 2006 06:16:02 +0000, ANC a écrit :

> True if you were running the unstable branch of Debian, maybe even
> 'testing'. No so for 'stable.'

Around 2004, things started to break seriously even in 'testing'. I have a
'stable' DVD at home - and even the 14-CD-set - but who wants that?

Niki

Dan C · External Since: Jan 08, 2005 Posts: 1094

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 03:25:13 -0700, Lowe wrote:

>>I know I don't have a week waiting for an install to complete.

> A base installation takes about 20-30 minutes to complete,

Horseshit.

> and all big packages available on separate cd as binaries.

If you're gonna use precompiled binaries, what's the point in using Gentoo
at all? Isn't that why Gentoo zealots claim superiority - that all their
stuff is "compiled from source"?

Which is it?

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

Leonard The Committed · External Since: Apr 23, 2006 Posts: 4

The Gentoo community is as big and as stable as a 400lb welfare mom
holding her place in line for free government cheese.

tecta · External Since: Apr 23, 2006 Posts: 3

Well first of all when you say "Debian spoils you by not having to
download new releases each time." Or whatever, all a new release is is
updated packages. Also, Gentoo does this too, hence it has a package
manager. The innvoating about Gentoo however is that it is a "from
source" distribution. And the community is great. It's really large.
And yes, portage is a great benefit.

Niki Kovacs · External Since: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 342

Le Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:08:37 +0000, ANC a écrit :

> In their defense, the Debian people say "This is why we call it [testing |
> unstable]." They have a point!

Before definitely quitting from Debian, I suggested to them to call their
branches broken/messy/outdated.

Niki

Mark South · External Since: Aug 02, 2005 Posts: 238

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 02:09:40 -0400, Geico Caveman wrote:

> I just read that Gentoo's creator, Daniel Robbins, defected to
> Microsoft a few months ago. That news is troubling at two levels - that he
> defected at all (not that bad), and that he chose to defect to Microsoft
> (this is very wrong - surely Novell or Redhat would have loved to hire
> him).

This is old news. So old that he's already *left* Microsoft, after less
than a year working there. It wasn't exactly a match made in heaven, was
it now?
--
mark south; echo znexfbhgu2000.DeleteThis@lnubb.pb.hx|tr a-z n-za-m
"I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic
globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable."
-- Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado