Review of Yoper Linux v2.1

Anonymous Coward writes "An interesting review of Yoper Linux has just been posted posted at linuxforums.org. Yoper Linux really does look like it could be the first serious competition Gentoo has had in a long time."

Comments

Competion for what?

[I_Love_Pocky!]

The first serious competion for what? The coolest new distro? That statement seems to imply that Gentoo is clearly the best around right now. I really like Gentoo, but I don't think I could dismiss all the other distros that easily.

Re:Competion for what?

[St. Arbirix]

I think they were referring to Gentoo's "title" of being the fastest running distribution. Gentoo is a pure and simple pain in the ass to install and requires you to become very well versed in the ways and workings of linux. If Yoper can compare in running speed to Gentoo and also include a quick and easy setup then it would indeed be competition, but I'm sure neither of us are too fuzzy of the rules of this "competition."

If Yoper can run as fast as Gentoo, with a fraction of the setup time, and be just as stable, Yoper will be indeed be the Windows-replacer I suggest for our future Installfests on campus. We've been installing Mandrake or Fedora Core 2 and were toying with the idea of getting a few dozen lab computers setup with distcc to make Gentoo installs feasible. Yoper would definitely save us the effort.

I'll still want to see benchmarks for game performance though. This could be my Doom 3 Linux distro of choice as well.

On a different track of thought, perhaps someone in the Gentoo camp will work on making some of Yoper's features available in one of the install stages. It's won't be blatant rip-off, it'll be the bazaar in action.

Re:Competion for what?

[bigredradio]

I am glad you said what you did. It further proves a point I have been trying to make for a long time. Gentoo is for not-so-knowledgable users who want to FEEL like a l33t hacker because they followed some instructions to build a system.

Gentoo is basically the equivelent of a "build your own AM radio" kit from radio shack. Yeah you have a deeper understanding of how it works, but I personally I would rather go and buy a nice Stereo. Does the kit mean you now have a deep knowledge of amplitude modulation and can substitute a degree. No.

Building a Gentoo system gives someone a little bit of knowledge that they can throw around at the IRC cocktail party. IMHO the real l33t hackers are only concerned with consistancy in their environment, the ability to develop with little interuption, and ease of use. If they want a system faster they may decide to use Gentoo. Not because they like tweeking the system, but because it allows them to get more done.

I can forsee Yoper becoming a Distro for those users because it allows them to get more work done. The "kit makers" will continue with Gentoo and I say, more power to them! My issues with Gentoo have only to do with the zealot users who feels that everyone else who uses a different distro are just cattle or newbies. They don't see that they wear their ignorance on their sleeve.

Re:Too many Distros

[pnatural]

We don't need 100 distros. Damn, we don't even need 10.

Yes, we do need them.

The thing you're missing is (as Agent Smith would say) purpose. Many of these distros exist purely because they meet a specific purpose. For example, there are distros used for desktop computers, distros for firewalls, distros for embedded devices, distros for clustering, distros for servers, etc.

Put another way: choice is good!

Now, had you said "we don't need 100's of desktop distros" I might have agreed.

Re:Too many Distros

[Bungopolis]

There's nothing wrong with variety here. The more diversity there is, the more likely natural consumer selection is to result in the dominance of truly better software for everybody.

Re:That's great

[Spyro VII]

Oh, you mean this one? Of course, mandrake is not the only "desktop distro" out there right now, but it's the best windows replacement distro that I've found so far. I have set up a number of PCs for friends and family running mandrake and they haven't had any problems yet. Of course, some things can give you trouble (certain hardware combinations), but the fact of the matter is that people like you need to get out of their shells and realize that there are distros out there that are bridging the desktop gap. And you need to either support them or atleast acknowledge their existence.

Re:That's great

[el-spectre]

I'm wondering myself why you'd edit yum.conf ... I'd just get the updated one from the Fedora Faq.

We're still getting there. Right now, linux DOES compete with windows, in the 'good with computers' or better class of folks. 5 years ago you had to be much more advanced. Over time, the OS is getting better, but folks (especially linux savvy folks such as yourself) don't help things any by standing around and whining that it's not perfect RIGHT NOW.

Re:not gpl compliant

[CoolMoDee]

that is gpl compliant. It just dosn't contain 100% "free software"

Sir,

[warrax_666]

I think you've misunderstood what Gentoo is really about(*) : USE flags. Just try implementing something like that in a binary distro -- it would cause exponential growth of the number of packages. This is the #1 reason I use Gentoo.

(*) Forget the speed difference some people try to claim, it's a red herring -- like you said, nobody really notices the difference either way.

Re:Gentoo Competition?

[Erik Hollensbe]

It's more like what work it's keeping me from being able to do.

Let's say I want to evaluate several large programs.

I can emerge/use ports for all of them, or I can pkg_add -r and play with them now. All the builds in the package repository are well-tested and I can be sure if the program is going to work at all, it's going to work with pkg_add installation.

I can't recall a time where I've been prompted for interaction with pkg_add, but I'm sure it's possible.

OTOH, with a minimal freebsd install I can configure the machine with a base system already installed and pre-configured while I'm adding any other software.

Another good example:

Shit has hit the fan/boss is hanging over my neck/whatever. I need to install program X to get my work done, money is being lost, customers are frustrated, whatever.

Do I want my program 2 hours from now? No. I want it yesterday. pkg_add/apt/yast/any other binary package installer that resolves dependencies gives me that power, and it's guaranteed to work.

And like I said, twiddling every bit to get your whopping 5% performance increase or less really means jack squat when you're doing a server build. Heck, for all the time your boss spent paying you to tweak gentoo to get that performance boost, he could have spent a 1/4 of that on more ram, faster drives/processor, whatever. Besides, real performance comes from properly architecting your farm, if you're relying on that 5% boost to serve more pages/process more mail/whatever, you're going to be surprised when it really hits the fan.

A binary/source based distro (I know of no package format these days that is binary-only, unless slackware still uses pkgtool and tar.gz packages) has more benefits than just quick installation, as well.

Need to roll out a custom version of package X? Compile once/package/distribute.

So tell me again how this causes YOU anymore work? It doesn't it simply takes advantage of your (probably) mostly idle system, and does a little more than copying files from a CD/ftp mirror to your hard disk.

I apologize for my laughter.

You do know that compiles take processor time, right? Generally they peg the processor for a good deal of time and in many cases, use a good deal of memory. Hope you're not doing anything important when that's going on.

Really though, if gentoo is good for you, great. Enjoy playing with use flags with experimental compilers on your overpriced workstation while I get real work done. :)