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- thtroyer, on 01/12/2008, -0/+2I've been using Gentoo for several months now, and I like it. Portage is amazing... though, you have excellent points about the USE flags. I've lost track of how many times something broke because I wasn't aware of one or didn't compile with it.
However, you've got to keep in mind that Gentoo's goal is not to be easy to use. Gentoo isn't competing with the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. While the USE flags can be a pain in the butt, they can be used advantageously for optimizations, and therein lies a great strength.
I mainly switched to Gentoo from Ubuntu as a way to further learn Linux systems, and it's certainly been a good experience. The biggest challenge for me was to relearn how to maintain a Linux system. As with learning anything, you've got to approach the problem from the proper perspective. If you know Java and attempt to code C++ 'the Java way', you're going to end up with some pretty miserable code. In the same way, if you want to learn and be successful with Gentoo, you've got to learn 'the Gentoo way'.
I'm not saying that Gentoo is perfect. Hardly. I'm simply tired of needless and pointless bashing between distros. If you don't like Gentoo, that's fine -- don't use it. If you don't like Linux, don't use it. It's really pretty simple. No need to hate. - ryker, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1There's no need to fork for that. That's what they have the stable and unstable branches for.
A fork at this point would only reduce the number of developers and make things worse. - StanStutter, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1From the article:
"Again, the trustees are the ones that get to decide whether or not to accept this offer.If they say "no", then I will stay out, and let them try to resolve this situation on their own." - Daniel Robbins
Maybe you guys should skip the poll and sign a petition addressed to the trustees.
Just a thought. - EddieNiese, on 01/12/2008, -2/+3You should not use software without knowing how it works. You really don't understand the complexity of dependencies between different software packages. The USE flags are annoying but they offer a very elegant way of stating configure options shared between components (think Apache + PHP + all required libraries for PHP). You want ease of installation? Install a distro that installs *EVERYTHING*. You want a lean & mean installation? Use Gentoo. But in all cases: read the documentation. Don't expect software to work like *you think* it should.
- wiifm69, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1Um, I really don't think gentoo will ever be "mainstream"
- naughtyboy, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1uh, you must have been around linux for too long. Most computer users dont know how to install linux, let alone change their operating system. Gentoo is very tweakable, not for mainstream user. If gentoo is to be taken seriiously, as a desktop OS, it has to release a "ubuntu" version with gentoo functionality.
That is, if it want to be a mainstream OS, it can't be both at the same time. - azuriel, on 01/13/2008, -0/+1You say "fork" so casually, like it's easy to fork a linux distribution. Gentoo has a similar system to Debian with stable and unstable packages; stable would correspond to your "Mainstream" and unstable to "Advanced". Admittedly stable isn't as stable as it should be, but if you want anything more look at Sabayon or some other Gentoo derived distro.
- naughtyboy, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1Neither do I, was just airing a suggestion. The great thing with linux, it steadily evolves, one shouldn't be confined to a single distribution at this point in time, it's to young for that..
- baalzebub, on 01/12/2008, -4/+4you wanna fix gentoo, get rid of those damn USE flags and other crap in /etc/make.conf and simplify portage ebuilds, you try to do too much, want a good example of a good ports system? look at FreeBSD's ports or Crux both of which dont over do it with stupid useless prefrences (especially the USE flags) late last year i unpacked a stage 3 tarball and built a nice kernel for it, and emerged xorg and a few basic things (cups, esp-ghostscript whatever) and a lightweight window manager and firefox, and guess what? most the graphics and photos would not work because i did not include some stupid USE flag that should naturally be included by default, forget gentoo, i dont want to waste my time on that annoying distro...
- naughtyboy, on 01/12/2008, -1/+1Solution: Fork
- Gentoo Mainstream/Desktop
- Gentoo Hobbyist/Advanced
Everyone will be happy. Attracting hardcore geeks as well as casual users.
Check out the new & improved 
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