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Parallel startup *will* hang your computer, if you are using a desktop-optimised kernel.

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83903

I guess this is exactly why we need something like launchd...

I wonder how this graphical installer for Gentoo will compare.

I think the aims are different - judging by the FAQ, the Gentoo installer just aims to provide a graphical frontend to each of the steps found in the traditional install guide. VidaLinux is really an attempt to improve on the bad bits of Gentoo. It keeps the portage system (no. 1 reason to use Gentoo), but the installer is altogether more sophisticated: it seemed to do some pretty comprehensive hardware detection on my system. I moved from Gentoo to Vida and have never looked back.

There's a handy little package called cfg-update that does 90% of the updates automatically for you (e.g., if only comments have changed, it'll just update without prompting you), and makes it easier to do the other 10%. I'd go crazy without it. It really should be the default updater.

Next is the cron daemon. Although it is optional and not required for your system, it is wise to install one. But what is a cron daemon? A cron daemon executes scheduled commands. It is very handy if you need to execute some command regularly (for instance daily, weekly or monthly).

Next is the cron daemon. Although it is optional and not required for your system, it is wise to install one. But what is a cron daemon? A cron daemon executes scheduled commands. It is very handy if you need to execute some command regularly (for instance daily, weekly or monthly).

Next is the cron daemon. Although it is optional and not required for your system, it is wise to install one. But what is a cron daemon? A cron daemon executes scheduled commands. It is very handy if you need to execute some command regularly (for instance daily, weekly or monthly).

FAMD is a dependency of KDE (and gnome) in portage. Why would you want a non-root "user" to be able to set a clock? Why would you want a non-root "user" to be able to mount anything (perhaps I'm just closed minded)? By "application sound server", are you referring to something like ALSA/dmix or ARTS? I know what an application is, and I know what a sound server is, but what is an "application sound server"? The multiple soundcard documentation is right here.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-263469-highli ght-.html

Whenever the speed of optimization is refuted, the gcc flag "-O2" or "-O3" is mentioned. What about the "-march" flag? Does optimizing for your CPU not help that much either? I'm no CPU expert, but why would intel bother engineering new optimized instructions etc. into their chips, if the benefit is marginal?

The other point of argument is usually comparing one app against its un-optimized self. Perhaps that is negligable, but I've got two identicle dell systems with P-III CPUs. The system running the Fedora Core 2 distro is a dog compared to it's twin running Gentoo. It's about an optimized system with every single piece of code running optimized.

OK, fine, let's say it's a wash and there's no performance gain. That's not the only reason to choose Gentoo.

http://forums.gentoo.org/ The user community registered to this site is amazing. Everyone's very willing to help a person in need. This counts huge in my book. I can't remember ever not getting resolution to a problem I was having from this site. Usually, I don't even have to post my own request for help. Someone else has already had the same problem and the solution's out there. I've tried a lot of distros, and their user community help systems. This one's the best in my opinion.

The gentoo wiki site http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page and how-to docs on http://www.gentoo.org/ are also great. They walk you through everything from the most basic things that most every system needs, to the very specialized tasks like user mode linux or selinux.

OK, it can take a while to compile a new system from scratch. Keep in mind that barring a hard drive crash on a system with no backup solution, you only have to do this system wide compile once. Every other distro I've used requires an upgrade to get from the current version to the next. While these upgrades are continually getting better, historically they were so bad that most people felt it was safer to just do a fresh install instead. Ok, Gentoo has a type of upgrade that you need to do periodically. It's real tuff. You delete /etc/make.profile and relink it (ln -s) to the new profile. Whew! Time for a coke.

Got two systems? Use distcc to help speed up compiles.

Still not fast enough? Install from the stage 3 tar file and run an "emerge -e world" later when you've got more time and the system won't be doing anything except burning electricity anyway.

Just don't want to have to wait to start surfing tghe web? Boot Knoppix instead of the gentoo live CD. While all the bootstrapping and compiling is going on, fire up firefox and pass the time with a functioning system.

Got 50 machines that have identicle hardware? Suffer through the compile once, and use one of "emerge -B/-b" or "quickpkg" to quickly install the rest with pre-compiled, optimized, binaries.

Bottom line, it's not a panacea. It's not your Grandma's distro. It's not without the occasional problem, but we Gentoo fans like our distro so Back Off! :) You're free to use another.

Whenever the speed of optimization is refuted, the gcc flag "-O2" or "-O3" is mentioned. What about the "-march" flag? Does optimizing for your CPU not help that much either? I'm no CPU expert, but why would intel bother engineering new optimized instructions etc. into their chips, if the benefit is marginal?

The other point of argument is usually comparing one app against its un-optimized self. Perhaps that is negligable, but I've got two identicle dell systems with P-III CPUs. The system running the Fedora Core 2 distro is a dog compared to it's twin running Gentoo. It's about an optimized system with every single piece of code running optimized.

OK, fine, let's say it's a wash and there's no performance gain. That's not the only reason to choose Gentoo.

http://forums.gentoo.org/ The user community registered to this site is amazing. Everyone's very willing to help a person in need. This counts huge in my book. I can't remember ever not getting resolution to a problem I was having from this site. Usually, I don't even have to post my own request for help. Someone else has already had the same problem and the solution's out there. I've tried a lot of distros, and their user community help systems. This one's the best in my opinion.

The gentoo wiki site http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page and how-to docs on http://www.gentoo.org/ are also great. They walk you through everything from the most basic things that most every system needs, to the very specialized tasks like user mode linux or selinux.

OK, it can take a while to compile a new system from scratch. Keep in mind that barring a hard drive crash on a system with no backup solution, you only have to do this system wide compile once. Every other distro I've used requires an upgrade to get from the current version to the next. While these upgrades are continually getting better, historically they were so bad that most people felt it was safer to just do a fresh install instead. Ok, Gentoo has a type of upgrade that you need to do periodically. It's real tuff. You delete /etc/make.profile and relink it (ln -s) to the new profile. Whew! Time for a coke.

Got two systems? Use distcc to help speed up compiles.

Still not fast enough? Install from the stage 3 tar file and run an "emerge -e world" later when you've got more time and the system won't be doing anything except burning electricity anyway.

Just don't want to have to wait to start surfing tghe web? Boot Knoppix instead of the gentoo live CD. While all the bootstrapping and compiling is going on, fire up firefox and pass the time with a functioning system.

Got 50 machines that have identicle hardware? Suffer through the compile once, and use one of "emerge -B/-b" or "quickpkg" to quickly install the rest with pre-compiled, optimized, binaries.

Bottom line, it's not a panacea. It's not your Grandma's distro. It's not without the occasional problem, but we Gentoo fans like our distro so Back Off! :) You're free to use another.

I'm a gentoo user on 3 different systems. A webserver being one of them.

As far as it goes about where the instructions for this or that goes. Unlike other distro's the forums http://forums.gentoo.org/ are probably some of the best I've ever seen. When you ask a question you tend to get some kind of helpful response. Even if its the amazingly simple question of how do you pipe a output to do something else. Others will net you a n00b ranking and razing without getting the response. That is one of the main reasons I've stayed with gentoo. The community around it just makes others appear elitist. *those of you who know which one i am talking about can say it but i wont ;)*

Of course you do have those ricers who do the 80 different cflags (many of which end up being redundant when you use -O2 or -O3). You also have the currently crazy people who've been running on GCC4 for months now, and have it working properly.

Gentoo DOES come on a live CD. In fact, you install from the Live CD. Here's the torrent for the x86 Live CD

Everyone got hung up on the stupid optimization jokes instead of "Graphical install, isn't that Knoppix? http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2479 http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=39998

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot? (This will improve KDE's file monitoring responsiveness.) Does a user know to chmod his RTC? How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it? How to setup multiple sound cards? How to set up your application sound server settings? How to enable the kernel laptop mode? How to setup power management runlevels? Which kernel modules need to be added to modules.autoload? How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

The Gentoo Forums contain the answers to all these issues and more. A goldmine for anyone searching for Linux related help/answers.

</fanboi rant>

</fanboi rant>

</fanboi rant>

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot?

Does a user know to chmod his RTC?

How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it?

How to setup multiple sound cards?

How to enable the kernel laptop mode?

How to setup power management runlevels?

How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot?

Does a user know to chmod his RTC?

How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it?

How to setup multiple sound cards?

How to enable the kernel laptop mode?

How to setup power management runlevels?

How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot?

Does a user know to chmod his RTC?

How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it?

How to setup multiple sound cards?

How to enable the kernel laptop mode?

How to setup power management runlevels?

How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot?

Does a user know to chmod his RTC?

How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it?

How to setup multiple sound cards?

How to enable the kernel laptop mode?

How to setup power management runlevels?

How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

For example, where in the documentation does it mention starting /etc/init.d/famd at boot?

Does a user know to chmod his RTC?

How to umask a vfat partition so that users can access it?

How to setup multiple sound cards?

How to enable the kernel laptop mode?

How to setup power management runlevels?

How to make fonts appear cleanly and consistently?

Screenshots

Sorry, I've removed the screenshots to avoid a /.ing.
No you haven't :)

If it takes you a weekend to install Gentoo, you should be using another distro.

Really.

If you want to know how to install it fast, learn about USE flags. Then, once you have a couple of systems ready to go, learn about distcc. Everything gets zippy then.

My systems are far more up to date than any other distro could manage, even in the stable branch, which is what I use. Their release schedules are generally on the order of months or years. I'm getting the newest stuff constantly, after it passes through unstable, and I never have to reinstall.

In terms of speed, I compile my own kernel and all software for my arch, not for some generic i586 target. There are advantages to this. The system is zippy enough that it's worth the time to compile.

If you don't want to bother, just grab Fedora/Mandrake/Ubuntu and stop knocking my distro. You weren't meant for Gentoo. Deal with it.

If it takes you a weekend to install Gentoo, you should be using another distro.

Really.

If you want to know how to install it fast, learn about USE flags. Then, once you have a couple of systems ready to go, learn about distcc. Everything gets zippy then.

My systems are far more up to date than any other distro could manage, even in the stable branch, which is what I use. Their release schedules are generally on the order of months or years. I'm getting the newest stuff constantly, after it passes through unstable, and I never have to reinstall.

In terms of speed, I compile my own kernel and all software for my arch, not for some generic i586 target. There are advantages to this. The system is zippy enough that it's worth the time to compile.

If you don't want to bother, just grab Fedora/Mandrake/Ubuntu and stop knocking my distro. You weren't meant for Gentoo. Deal with it.

Ross Anderson's Critique

IBM's Rebuttal

Trusted Gentoo

IBM's rebuttal does a decent job of allaying some of the fears - for example, it states that it will not prevent you from running any OS & programs you wish to on your own computer (which, for the record, I believe - witness the Trusted Gentoo project and e.g. this this link). They state that their approach to Trusted Computing is not particularly well-suited to DRM, and on the face of it, I agree - there seems to be little attempt at restricting the user of a computer with the TPM from doing what they want. However, in my opinion, as a base for an utterly crippling DRM regime, distributors simply could not ask for a better setup, as I'll argue a little later.

So to re-cap, it seems that if you are running Trusted hardware, there are no restrictions on what you can do on your computer in isolation; you can install Linux, run any number of Open Source apps, etc. But the keyword here is in isolation, and it is here that the dangers of Trusted Computing are revealed. For you see, Trusted Computing enables the usage of remote attestation wherein a server may request a hash of all software currently running on your computer. This hash is, for all intents and purposes, unforgeable, and if you disable your TPM (as IBM stress that you can, and again for the record, I see no reason to disbelieve them), no hash will be sent. The server may then assess this hash of software (or note that no hash has been provided, in which case it may well treat your computer as Untrusted) and decide, based on what software you are running, to simply not serve you with whatever material you requested - for example, it may decide that it will not deliver MP3's to your computer unless it knows for a fact that the receiving application is one that is known to encrypt the content as soon as it is received (so that e.g. it simply cannot be viewed while not running in Trusted mode) and which will take every step to ensure that once received, the unencrypted content never leaves your machine (e.g. by being written to CD, e-mailed , etc.). As you can imagine, the above scenario is not at all far-fetched as the **AA/ other media distributors are positively *creaming* themselves at the thought of stamping out casual file-sharing or even making backups for your own use in some of your other devices.

So we are left with the situation where someone who does not use Trusted hardware (and is thus unable to respond to attestation requests) or those who do run Trusted hardware but whose software fingerprint is not deemed acceptable by the server will simply not be granted access to certain material, rendering such people at a big disadvantage. And it's no good buying hardware free from Trust chips from China or such places on the "black market"; this offers no advantage at all as Trusted hardware, as mentioned, does not stop you using your computer the way you want in isolation; the problem only occurs when you try to interact with other computers.

So far, this sounds unpleasant but not too bad (although I would urge you to read Anderson's linked essay for some more imaginative and serious abuses), but if we allow ourselves to follow the slippery-slope, we end up at the state where ISPs will not allow your computer to access the internet at all (for surfing, e-mailing, anything) unless you are running Trusted hardware and software. Obviously, the social, political and legal barriers to this occurence are non-trivial, but we've all seen ridiculous Acts qu

So, this miscount works both ways.

So, this miscount works both ways.

I call Bullshit.

i have been running linux on a dual Opteron for 4 months now with NO problems. granted I went Nvidia, and they care about releasing drives for linux people so I had no problems there... UT2004 in 64 bit (yup the 64 bit version of the linux app is on the install CD's) is screaming fast. All drivers are there in 64 bit goodness, SATA is happy as well as my u320 Scsi raid.

Care to actually list the hardware you claim that there was no support for? Myself and several others in the LUG have no problems with 64bit linux. Also anyone having a shit fit over an office app running in 32 bit mode really needs to get a life. We have been using Suse 9.2 and it runs all the 32 bit apps happily on the 64 bit system. If you were a real gentoo user you would have known how to get 32 bit emulation turned on.

here, waht help? this obscure website

Suse has it set up for you already, but as a Gentoo user you must be an advanced linux pro to choose it over a newbie distro like Suse that configures everything for you already.

this is NOT a dig on Gentoo users, you guys typically are levels above the "I hate text files" crowd, I just know that the parent is lying and am trying to make a point about it.

if the parent is actually truthful i strongly suggest he choose a distro that has more automatic configurations and is ready for 64 bit like Suse.

What, is Gentoo no longer a "maintained distro"?

There has actually been an effort to get GCC4 working on gentoo since before it was GCC4 (ie GCC 3.5). More details can be found here.

The work started a little less than a year ago, and it seems like there has been a fair amount of progress. Not enough for me to give it a shot instead of 3.4.3, which is still considered testing (the default compiler is 3.3.5) on an x86 machine.

For those who want to know what works and what doesn't: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-176085.html

How many packages do Gentoo have in their repo? about 8000?

If you can name one of the 800 packages (9193 in Portage)in the Mandrake repos that aren't in Gentoo (minus urpmi or whatever), I'd be pretty surprised. I get six million results when I search for "blah" in Google, but I'm probably not going to go past the first couple of pages, if that. Volume doesn't necessarily mean much.

Any distro released every 6 months will have packages that are slightly behind - Fedora and Suse have this problem too. Gentoo may not but often the price is a bit less stability

I've never really understood the "stability" argument. It's not like you're forced to upgrade all the time with Gentoo. It's just an option. You can certainly stick with older versions if that makes you happy.

and less of the polish of a 'shrink-wrapped' distro (installer, hardware detection, out-of-the-box functionality, etc) as you mentioned.

That I'll agree with. I wouldn't describe the Gentoo install as difficult, but it is long and involved. The benefit I see is that you only have to do it once. I always hated having to upgrade Mandrake with every new version.

I'm no blinded fanboi though. I think it's good to have different distributions. Gentoo's right for me, but I know people I'd much rather have running Mandrake or whatever. :-)

See also: Clippy meets vi

They're trying to win us back.

--Gentoo user

The application that provides Linux users with the ability to run graphical user interfaces and that uses the X11 standard is Xorg-X11, a fork of the XFree86 project. XFree86 has decided to use a license that might not be compatible with the GPL license; the use of Xorg is therefore recommended. The official Portage tree does not provide an XFree86 package anymore.

ok i think you take a really bad example, i have XP SP1a and i DO NOT plan to upgrade to SP2... you tell me that a could miss new application, like IE7 then I WOULD NOT plan to upgrade to SP2... in fact the last big upgrade that i ve done to my main box is this one http://www.gentoo.org/ it does not take much time a least less that un SP2 install - broken system - + a whole XP reinstall + SP2 install....

The fix for Gentoo bug #88863 was marked stable for x86 yesterday. Sometimes there's some value in compiling your own.

Yeah, I'm a fanboy.

Changelog for acroread
You can install whatever binary on Gentoo you want. There are a lot of ebuilds for binaries such as nvidia or acroread.

The changelog shows when it was made available to Gentoo users. *acroread-7.0 (14 Mar 2005)

Woah - what is that comment supposed to mean? Are you saying that Windows and Mac folks will make you an ISA of their drive?

I don't need help with Windows or Macs so I've never asked. But I would certainly make (and have done so) an ISO image of a working Windows configuration for a set of hardware.

But you misunderstood my comment. When begging and asking for help with Linux, I've often asked for someone to simply ISO a drive from a bare configuration that JUST FREAKIN WORKS. I've actually offered to go out and buy the hardware to match the image. I just want off of Windows. But the only way that is going to happen will take one of the following:

1) This VIA stuff works
2) Linux picks a GUI and starts a "desktop linux" environment
3) I get a Mac

If *anyone* in the Detroit area wants to help me out, then I'm all ears. But as it sits, I've got about 8 weeks of fiddling with Gentoo and Ubuntu and I can't get nearly the performance that I can with Windows. I just want responsive graphics, synchronized audio/video and a single media player that will play all of my media. I'll buy whatever hardware that it takes.

Anyone?

> seems to turn into a sludgy mess after a few months with me at the wheel

Sorry to hear that. They have some great tools for for fixing problems.

> Gentoo is upto date because they don't wait for wierd arch's

No, Gentoo is up to date because it is a source distro. Its trivial to add support for a new platform in most cases. Or to just rebuild a package when one of its deps is updated and its ABI changes.

> thier update releases tend to be not as large as debians.

This is because update releases aren't the same as Debian releases. Gentoo releases have more to do with the version of the LiveCD and version of GCC, than anything else. When you upgrade from 2004.3 to 2005.0 for example, you change a symlink:

/etc/make.profile -> /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2005.0
instead of
/etc/make.profile -> /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2004.3

The packages are kept up to date, rather than getting stale, and upgrading once every 2 years.

I did and bought an D900T Phantom, sans Windoze. Fantastic customer support, highly recommended. Lapdog runs Gentoo by the way.

Yeah. Cause that proves a lot. Look at all the people who've had problems installing various Linux distros. They must all suck too! *rolls eyes*

Hi All,
I also saw this (namely on the gentoo-dev mailing list) and thought... why not? So, I've actually begun the job of porting Gentoo to SFU.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2276493.html# 2276493

It's early days, and is nowhere near useful at this stage, but it's a start. Any Portage/Python Gurus, assistance would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Fair enough.

If the Gentoo folks' numbers and graphs are right, spinning down drives and shutting down the display is about half of the energy consumption, which beats nothing.

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here

Here is a sample:

dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
waferbaby.com - amusing php error
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft

Isn't April Fools Day just the best? =] For a 'full' list of sites pulling pranks today check out this list here

Here is a sample:

kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) SMEGmail offers 1 terabyte storage
smh.com.au - (Free Reg Req) Linux looks to Hilton for exposure
thetoque.com - Canada Builds Own Missile Defense Shield
onion.com - U.S. Dog Owners Fear Arrival of Africanized Fleas
chron.com - Bush Twins in Maxim
ask.com - Jeeves has been replaced by a robot
animenewsnetwork.com - Viz Unlicenses Naruto
uninventthewheel.co.uk - New BMW technology to get around the EU ban on right hand drive cars in Europe.
newgrounds.com - changing to numagrounds.com
neopets.com - neopets adds 50 new pets
www.firstloox.org - The Loox is being recalled
packages.gentoo.org - Adobe doesn't sell products for Linux
pc.ign.com - Microsoft World of Wordcraft (Extremely Obvious)
spamusement.com - Page full of spoof banner ads
gentooexperimental.org - Gentoo using the NT kernel
moddb.com

For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here -

Here is a sampling:

dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars

For a full list of sites that pulled April Fools Day Pranks this year check out this list here Here is a sampling: dotget.net - Microsoft to put P2P software .GET into next version of Windows
kylewenda.com - the government records your phone calls... scary
rfc-editor.org - RFC for "Requirements for Morality Sections in Routing Area Drafts"
waferbaby.com - amusing php error
planet.gentoo.org - Various things, CFLAGS, etc
fark.com - Many Jokes (keep reloading): BOOBIES!, Logged in as admin, North-Central Kentucky Bunghole-Discharge, page from 1999, BEER
2600.com - Formal Attire required for 2600 meetings today
forumsector.com - Changed the name to Nascar Sector
wikipedia.org - Britannica taking over Wikimedia
google.com - Google releases Google Gulp
kellyosbourne.org - Sanctuary records group shut us down
nukefreezone.net - Making fun of atrios.blogspot.com
weebl.jolt.co.uk - Replaced with Cats-By-Mail
telecom.co.nz - Click 2 Brick
ytmnd.com - (NSFW) hacked by teens for christ
wingus.ampedhost.com - Site converted into Mingus' Gently-Used Furniture store. Oh dear. Why won't he be kind?
homestarrunner.com - Now a pay service.
whirlpool.net.au - Australia's biggest Luddite to head Australia's largest telco
thinkgeek.com - Fake product listings.
theregister.co.uk - Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq
creativebits.org - Site purchased by Microsoft
ocremix.org - Now partnered with EA (or something like that). Called EA ReMix.
spacedaily.com - Bush Cancels Space Shuttle Program
planet.gnome.org - Switched sites with planet.kde.org
planet.kde.org - Switched sites with planet.gnome.org
ietf.org - RFC: Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
beejaysworld.de - Gentoo dropping livecds for x86
nature.com - Apollo bacteria spur lunar erosion
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov - Water On Mars

gentoo doesn't have an installer... :(

For a distribution that "doesn't have an installer", they certainly use the word "install" a lot in the Installing Gentoo document.

Most of my open soruce work is with lower level tools like xml parsers and version control systems

How much of the time "spent ... working on and tweaking my linux system to get it up to the usability stanadards of os x" could have been spent working on those tools, instead? That, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the biggest reasons why even hardcore hackers should support having the OS and desktop environment Just Work, whenever possible.

How many of the tweaks were either application source tweaks (which should be fed back to the developers - or, if they represent personal tweaks, perhaps fed back after being made settable preferences) or configuration file tweaks (in which case, should that setting of the configuration file be the default - or be settable from your favorite desktop environment's configuration app?)?

man softwareupdate

-- or --

Gentoo for Mac OS X

OS X software maintainance from the command line.

Forgot to mention this, a decent (but different to iScroll) implimentation of scrolling for Linux on Powerbooks.