[Hudlug] A gentoo question

[Chris Lindley]

On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 09:07, Chris Wood wrote:
> hudlug-admin@mailman.lug.org.uk wrote:

Hi,

I switched to Gentoo from Debian Sid just before Christmas.

I only switched over to give it a go and play with it, and have found
myself keeping it going as my main OS, and not booted back into Debian
for a while now.

> > I've been having a lot of problems recently with debian sid due to the
> > change of default compiler from 2.95 to 3.2. I'm having to be careful
> > to avoid dependency hell, and some of my KDE 3.1 packages are
> > crashing in new and interesting ways.

> > Would Gentoo get me out of all this by letting me compile everything
> > myself
errr... NO!!

:-)  Gentoo is still prone to dependency problems.  e.g. I cannot
upgrade mplayer at the moment, as it depends on a more recent version of
SDL, which in turn depends on an earlier version of another library. 
With the result that SDL will not compile and so mplayer cannot get
upgraded!!!  I am running the unstable version of Gentoo though!

I would not recommend switching to Gentoo to get a more stable system. I
would only recommend doing so to "have a play" and learn a bit more
about Linux.  Gentoo is a lot more hands on than Debian.  It is a
nowhere near as mature as Debian.  Portage is nto even close to the ease
of Apt-get. As an example, a recent upgrade to a system util ended up in
the entire /usr partition being wiped!  Not exactly my idea of sensible
system maintenance!  All apps are compiled and installed as root. But I
would deffo recommend Gentoo to you as a decent system.  To somebody
coming from Debian it's not that different!  I keep thinking to switch
back, but I've got a nice responsive desktop now.  Much better than I
had with Debian (but Debian is waiting there for the day I know Gentoo
will crash and burn).
> 
> I'm sure it would to some degree, but with beeding edge stuff you'll
> invariably have problems.
> I remember running slackware with a 1.1.17 kernel when I first started using
> linux, and religiously downloading and compiling each new kernel the day it
> came out.
> 
> Lots of them fell over, as dev kernels have always done, some wouldn't
> compile, and I seemed to spend all my spare time answering questions in
> 'make config' followed by sitting watching files compile for 30 minute
> stretches.
> I got bored in the end, and went back to using the machine for much more
> interesting things like browsing newsgroups and the web.
> I don't tinker too much these days - I'm happy with my RH8 install - it
> looks good, and works really very well. I don't care that I could send 3
> days recompiling everything in gentoo so that it's fully optimised for my
> hardware and maybe 5% faster. I wouldn't notice the difference.

I installed Gentoo from Debian.  I just "chroot" to a new partition,
untarred the base Gentoo system, then set it d/loading and compiling the
new system..  So after a couple of days I rebooted and switched to
Gentoo.  I used my system as normal during this time!
> ..
> 
> I like the idea of apt - it's wonderful for getting new packages on your
> machine if you are on a broadband connection, and I wish RH had it [I know
> you can get apt-rpm].
> However I really think it's use in non-stable Debian distros is asking for
> trouble. I've a mate that insists on running the latest bleeding edge stuff
> on his work machine, and blindly runs an apt-get upgrade every morning when
> he gets into work. A year or so ago after doing this he found that nothing
> worked any more due to some upgrade of glibc or somesuch that was broken
> [soz - don't remember exactly what it was]. I'm sure thousands of people
> spent the rest of the day tearing their hair out trying to get his their
> machines working again. My mate certainly did, and our boss was not best
> pleased, understandably.
> He still runs an upgrade every morning, which probably goes to show
> something...

Apart from the few months when I was writing my thesis, i did the same. 
Even including the experimental sources line as well!!  Never had much
problems.  ...adn teh few I had taught me a lot about the system!  :-)
> 
> > I think I might take a lieu day on monday to have a proper go at this
> > over the weekend.

Look at the alternative methods of installing Gentoo on their homepage
for hwo to install it like I did.  This way you don;t lose access to
your machine for a few days!

Cheers
Chris

> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hudlug
-- 
  Chris Lindley                                  
  chris.lindley@scotgate.org          chrishl@bmb.leeds.ac.uk
  ICQ#157144010	    AIM#fergycool    jabber#fergy    IRC#Ferg
  Climb up it, kayak down it + make sure it runs on GNU/Linux