[Sussex] Re: Gentoo problems.

[Steve Williams]

John,


On Monday 23 February 2004 09:33, Geoff Teale wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-02-23 at 08:20 +0000, John D. wrote:
> <snip> {
	<snip> {

>
> > Da Nada Senor.
> >
> > But mainly because so much of Linux is over my head. I honestly feel that
> > the relative complexity of "it"  is what gives so much ammunition to the
> > "anti-linux" crowd - and yes their seniment's are easy for one to
> > sympathise with.
>
> John,
>
> Part of the problem here is that you are working with Gentoo - it is a
> fantastic distro with a lot of advantages, but it really is the domain
> of the advanced user.
>
> As some of you now know, I was talked into becoming a Fedora developer
> by people whom I respect.  A large part of the clinching argument was
> that the majority of people need a good working distro that is easy to
> use _and_ powerful.  Although the likes of Lindows and Xandros have all
> gone a long way on the ease of use front and debian, slackware and
> Gentoo have the power at your fingertips only  the likes of Red Hat and
> SuSE have proven themselves on the middle ground.  Most inexperienced
> people do (and should) look to Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrake as their
> principle Linux provider if they are looking to replace desktop systems
> or home computers.   Now I know that Gentoo and Debian are more than
> capable of fulfilling these roles (and are superior in many respects)
> when they are in the hands of a skilled user.  I have waxed lyrical for
> a long time about how great a Gentoo system can be, and there are enough
> Debian fans here to sink the Queen Mary, but the plain truth is that
> neither of these systems is consumer or business ready in the wider
> sense, and in the case of Gentoo it's very nature means it never will
> be.  However Red Hat and SuSE have been making a living in precisely
> these communities for a long time, and they continue to do so, and to my
> mind they are getting very, very good at it.
>
> Now that Red Hat have basically opened up a bit with the Fedora project
> (although that process, in my current experience is by no means
> complete) we have the opportunity to make a really great distribution.
>
> To John (and other like him) I say this:
>
> Please do persevere with Gentoo if your aim is to learn how a Linux
> system is screwed together and do real productive work at that level, or
> indeed if your aim is to get every last pennies worth of bang for your
> buck.  You shouldn't criticise Linux for giving you this opportunity -
> it's certainly not something you have the option of doing under Windows.
>
> However, if your aim is simply to learn to use Linux or UNIX at a a
> slightly more technical level than web surfing and word processing then
> the likes of Fedora or SuSE still leave you plenty of scope to do this.
> You'll find that in most cases they'll "just work".

	}
}

Hear hear. I would certainly not count myself as an experienced Linux user, 
but I would certainly support Geoff's encouragement to persist with Gentoo. I 
did and I now have an installation that is IMO superior to the SuSE 
installation I had previously.

A Gentoo install certainly is time-consuming and throws up some interesting 
problems from which I have learnt a great deal.

I did say that I would not be able to make the moot on thursday, but if you 
are going I will try to get there so you can see my own Gentoo install on my 
Dell Precision M50 - 1600x1200 framebuffer graphical boot, KDE 3.2, K3B etc. 
and all.

Good luck, and get in touch if you think I can assist.

Steve Williams.