emerge works fine as a package manager. I just use 3rd party tools when searching.
Searching is not a required feature of a package manager, so, while you might think that portage is broken, the fact that so many people use a distro whose primary distinguishing feature happens to be portage seems to indicate that portage is, in fact, good for something.
I happen to think it's a fine system. I applaud the efforts of people who try to make it faster or more helpful, but that doesn't mean that I'm unhappy with the system as it is today.
I would suspect that the ever increasing size of the portage tree is the reason that emerge searching is so slow. Hopefully, this is being addressed by the portage developers (and in the meantime we'll all use 3rd party alternatives like eix).
Please elaborate: in what way is portage too slow?
Here's my experience:
Once a week or so I fire off 'emerge --sync' in an xterm. A little while later I fire off an 'emerge -uDvat world' and come back to it a little bit later to find it happily waiting for instructions.
At no point am I sitting waiting for it.
Running 'time emerge -uDvpt world' says that it took 61 seconds on my slowest machine (3 seconds on my server) to generate the list of updated packages. I never notice the time because I simply come back to it once it's done.
Then I give it build instructions and, again, it does all it's building in the background while I do something else.
I have to respect Steve Balmer who sold Novell board absolutely nothing and got all the benefit
Uh, you've got it backward. Microsoft paid Novel hundreds of millions of dollars to sign this deal. We don't know yet if MS got anything other than FUD fodder out of it.
Just placing a memory stick on the table downloads its contents? Brilliant!
It's probably not quite that simple...
The articles I've read claim that the table will be able to read barcodes and communicate with devices placed on it. None of the articles gave any hint as to how that would happen. I'm sure they have ideas how to do this, but I suspect that the videos and demos are currently smoke and mirrors.
It might be interesting to do a patent search to see what related patents MS has filed since 2001. That might give us a clue what they're intending.
You are considered a monopoly when you have undue influence over your market (and sometimes related markets). In some markets, that might require almost 100% market share, in other markets that might only require 20%.
If Dell started selling lots of Linux desktops, don't you think that device makers would be more interested in making sure their products had Linux drivers?
Even if these machines are only purchased by people already part of the Linux community, isn't it possible that enough of us will buy these that it makes sense for Dell to continue to offer them (or even expand the line)?
It's not like these machines will cannibalize their other sales. If anything, it's an attempt to sell machines to people who wouldn't otherwise even consider buying from dell.
Not a bad deal, assuming these machines actually work (I'm optimistic).
I follow lots of comics on the web. I use bookmarks to keep my place so that I don't actually have to remember what the last day was that I got caught up.
I also bookmark specific posts on newsgroups, mailing list archives, and blogs (like/.).
I couldn't live without Bookmarks for these purposes.
Besides that, most of my other bookmarks are to things local to my machine or to websites that index topic-related sites. I could use google, but I prefer well designed index sites to seemingly randomly organized search results.
I love Google, but Bookmarks are still a Good Thing.
That's kind of my point. If you can read well enough to follow directions, you can set up an OpenBSD router that's fully IPv6 capable. No experience or expertise required. Just find a set of directions online that make sense to you and follow the recipe.
Perhaps there's a market for small, silent, OpenBSD-based network appliances (nobody has to know that they're just regular computers with two NICs).
Seriously, if you're savvy enough to even be aware of IPv6, setting up OBSD as an IPv6-aware router should be child's play for you. Google for "IPv6 OpenBSD router" and take any of the links on the first page.
I agree. In a couple of months I'll need to replace my aging desktop machine with a laptop since the office will likely be converted into a nursery. If the reviews of these machines indicate that the hardware is properly supported (no ndiswrapper, no ATI/nVidia blackbox drivers), I'll snap up the notebook.
I'll give Ubuntu a chance, but I'll probably end up installing Gentoo.
You can get Windows for the same price if you're willing to live with the Home edition. If you compare to Vista Premium/Ultimate/Whatever, the Linux box is actually cheaper.
Assuming, of course, that you're not just going to wipe Windows off as soon as you get the machine.
Well, in that case it won't matter either since those are the people who use whatever OS comes on the machine even if they didn't like it on a previous machine.
Slashdot Mirror
With growing market share come the demands of progressively dumber users
I've never heard it expressed so succinctly (and without cussing).
Beautiful.
emerge works fine as a package manager. I just use 3rd party tools when searching.
Searching is not a required feature of a package manager, so, while you might think that portage
is broken, the fact that so many people use a distro whose primary distinguishing feature
happens to be portage seems to indicate that portage is, in fact, good for something.
I happen to think it's a fine system. I applaud the efforts of people who try to make it faster
or more helpful, but that doesn't mean that I'm unhappy with the system as it is today.
I don't use emerge much for searching. I either use eix or http://packages.gentoo.org/ for searching.
I would suspect that the ever increasing size of the portage tree is the reason that emerge searching is so slow. Hopefully, this is being addressed by the portage developers (and in the meantime we'll all use 3rd party alternatives like eix).
Please elaborate: in what way is portage too slow?
Here's my experience:
Once a week or so I fire off 'emerge --sync' in an xterm. A little while later I fire off an 'emerge -uDvat world' and come back to it a little bit later to find it happily waiting for instructions.
At no point am I sitting waiting for it.
Running 'time emerge -uDvpt world' says that it took 61 seconds on my slowest machine (3 seconds on my server) to generate the list of updated packages. I never notice the time because I simply come back to it once it's done.
Then I give it build instructions and, again, it does all it's building in the background while I do something else.
What part is too slow for you?
If the PS3 never turns a profit, but because of the PS3, Blu-Ray wins the HD format war, is the PS3 a success or a failure from Sony's point of view?
I was at Target on Sunday and they had at least 3 Wii's for sale. This is in Memphis, TN. I thought about grabbing one, but decided against it.
I have to respect Steve Balmer who sold Novell board absolutely nothing and got all the benefit
Uh, you've got it backward. Microsoft paid Novel hundreds of millions of dollars to sign this deal. We don't know yet if MS got anything other than FUD fodder out of it.
Touch screen are already recognized as great ways to transmit sudh things as colds, flues, pink eye, etc.
They'd better make sure that this thing can handle 409 and Windex...
Just placing a memory stick on the table downloads its contents? Brilliant!
It's probably not quite that simple...
The articles I've read claim that the table will be able to read barcodes and communicate with devices placed on it. None of the articles gave any hint as to how that would happen. I'm sure they have ideas how to do this, but I suspect that the videos and demos are currently smoke and mirrors.
It might be interesting to do a patent search to see what related patents MS has filed since 2001. That might give us a clue what they're intending.
http://www.gumstix.com/ might be what you're thinking about.
I've seen exactly one. A fellow I work with bought one for his wife for Christmas.
I don't know if she uses it.
The newspapers that actually produce content will do fine. It's the newspapers that regurgitate the AP stories that are screwed.
If anything, Google is encouraging variety in reporting.
You are considered a monopoly when you have undue influence over your market (and sometimes related markets). In some markets, that might require almost 100% market share, in other markets that might only require 20%.
but there's tons of obvious stuff they could do to improve the search experience which they don't seem interested in.
What sorts of things have you got in mind?
If Dell started selling lots of Linux desktops, don't you think that device makers would be more interested in making sure their products had Linux drivers?
Even if these machines are only purchased by people already part of the Linux community, isn't it possible that enough of us will buy these that it makes sense for Dell to continue to offer them (or even expand the line)?
It's not like these machines will cannibalize their other sales. If anything, it's an attempt to sell machines to people who wouldn't otherwise even consider buying from dell.
Not a bad deal, assuming these machines actually work (I'm optimistic).
I follow lots of comics on the web. I use bookmarks to keep my place so that I don't actually have to remember what the last day was that I got caught up.
/.).
I also bookmark specific posts on newsgroups, mailing list archives, and blogs (like
I couldn't live without Bookmarks for these purposes.
Besides that, most of my other bookmarks are to things local to my machine or to websites that index topic-related sites. I could use google, but I prefer well designed index sites to seemingly randomly organized search results.
I love Google, but Bookmarks are still a Good Thing.
It's hard to not be aware of IPv6
That's kind of my point. If you can read well enough to follow directions, you can set up an OpenBSD router that's fully IPv6 capable. No experience or expertise required. Just find a set of directions online that make sense to you and follow the recipe.
Perhaps there's a market for small, silent, OpenBSD-based network appliances (nobody has to know that they're just regular computers with two NICs).
Seriously, if you're savvy enough to even be aware of IPv6, setting up OBSD as an IPv6-aware router should be child's play for you. Google for "IPv6 OpenBSD router" and take any of the links on the first page.
If you just talking about the desktop, then I'll agree with you. However, in the server space, things are very different.
I agree. In a couple of months I'll need to replace my aging desktop machine with a laptop since the office will likely be converted into a nursery. If the reviews of these machines indicate that the hardware is properly supported (no ndiswrapper, no ATI/nVidia blackbox drivers), I'll snap up the notebook.
I'll give Ubuntu a chance, but I'll probably end up installing Gentoo.
You can get Windows for the same price if you're willing to live with the Home edition. If you compare to Vista Premium/Ultimate/Whatever, the Linux box is actually cheaper.
Assuming, of course, that you're not just going to wipe Windows off as soon as you get the machine.
I don't know for sure, but I thought that they had to quit doing that sort of thing as a result of the antitrust settlement.
Anybody know actually knows care to post?
Well, in that case it won't matter either since those are the people who use whatever OS comes on the machine even if they didn't like it on a previous machine.
Perhaps some of us have been burned when purchasing used computer equipment (especially notebooks).