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New Gentoo 2007.0 Release Gets Mixed Review
lisah writes "Gentoo's recently released version 2007.0 gets a fair-to-middling review from Linux.com. Installation was a headache from the live CD and DVD versions, but the Gentoo Linux Installer saved the day and gets high marks for being 'far better than it's predecessor.' The user experience is also mixed — on the one hand, the distribution boots quickly, has great hardware support, and new, user-friendly artwork. On the other hand, 'for some strange reason, the installed Gentoo doesn't allow normal users to run any administrative applications.' Overall, it doesn't look like Gentoo offers any compelling reasons to switch to 'Secret Sauce' if they're happy with their current, uh, flavor."
You've filed bug reports, right? That definitely sounds unwanted. I'm typing this from the install I did in 2003, and it's up to date.
Haida Manga
Personally I've always seen the strength of Gentoo in that it teaches you how an OS really works for the most part. You're doing every step along the way assuming a Stage 1 install which is the only Gentoo installs I'll perform. You are building your system from the ground up and with that you learn a lot about the underlying systems that you just won't learn from installing and using Ubuntu.
Of course the speed and optimizations are nice as well, with a Gentoo install the only things running on the systems are applications that you explicitly command it to run. It's a pain and I wouldn't really use it for a general purpose workstation but for some servers its simply great. Of course with Gentoo you have to always wait a bit after every release since every new release has big bugs. That's what testing servers are for though.
In short, I agree with you. There is definitely a place for both.
I use Gentoo on servers because of the flexibility. I can specify exactly what I need. I can generate custom ebuilds easily (they are just shell scripts after all). In fact I can make entire installable custom *distros* for in-house apps and combinations of libraries, etc. I can pin specific packages to specific versions. I can set the build flags for each individual app. I can selectively override the Gentoo-supplied ebuilds with overlays. I can keep track of all my config files and track changes with RCS. I can install multiple versions of PHP, MySQL, Java, whatever, and keep it all straight. This is why I use Gentoo.
I really don't give a shit about a pretty installer. Let Gentoo focus on the power-user niche please, and if you don't like it, use something else.
Gentoo community is a good reason to use Gentoo. YMMV, but I've played with other distros and gone to forums or chat rooms for help with some particular problem and the typical response is, "What? WTF do you want to do that? I'm not going to help with that!" Gentoo response is, "What? WTF do you want to do that? Sounds stupid, but if you really want to do it you would..."
I love my sig.
If they managed to compile KDElibs without SSL, and if that's something KDElibs allows you to do (easily), then it is not their fault for custom-compiling something, it is your fault for not specifying SSL as a dependency.
As for the bleeding-edge build system, I can understand your frustration, but if (emphasis on if) KDE is moving towards that bleeding-edge system -- if it's actually on the roadmap -- then you should be putting it in your own bleeding-edge builds, too. I hate when we get things like upstart (in Ubuntu Edgy and Feisty) which has all these amazing capabilities, but ends up basically being used for launching runlevels because no developers actually wrote upstart-specific init scripts. (Which is one nice thing I can say for Gentoo; they do tend to always write Gentoo-specific init scripts.)
Now, I don't use Gentoo anymore, don't really like it for a couple of reasons, but if there's anything I hate about Gentoo bug reports, it's the ones I send to the Gentoo guys that get ignored for years at a time.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!