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From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>
Subject: [gentoo-amd64] Re: CD drive opening on boot!!
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:07:25 +0000 (UTC)
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Lie Ryan posted on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:08:48 +1100 as excerpted:
> IMO Gentoo's edge was not about having the most cutting edge software
> (pun not intended), but rather "having a choice". With Gentoo, you get
> to choose which USE-flag to (not) include; you got to choose the kernel
> options and also to use genkernel; then you've got a choice to run a
> antiquated, full-stable, half-stable, ~arch, or overlay; you are free t=
o
> choose how antiquated or cutting edge you want your system to be. And
> Gentoo's portage makes living the picky eater's life much easier than i=
f
> you have to compile packages and its dependencies manually to separate
> the vegetables (or meats if you're a vegetarian; or pork if you're a
> Muslim; or cows if you're a Hindi; or whatever taboo or personal
> distrust you have).
You're right about the choice, of course, but... well, the whole kde3=20
thing has nicely illustrated the issues stable gentooers have.
To this day I'd not call kde4 ready for stable yet, and CERTAINLY not as=20
stable and usable as kde-3.5.10. 4.4 should be getting close, I expect=20
it'll be like a release candidate traditionally is, it could be stable if=
=20
it had to be, but there's a few more bugs they want to kill before it's=20
fully released. 4.3 is late beta, 4.2 was early beta, a LOT of SERIOUS=20
bugs still hanging around, 4.1 was post-freeze alpha, and 4.0... was very=
=20
early technology demo, mostly prototype, from a user perspective.
OTOH, with the new name and focus on devs, KDE SC /is/ really aimed at=20
devs, NOT end users, with the included apps really being developer demos,=
=20
and the kde4 versioning and kde 4.2 stability claims /does/ more=20
accurately reflect that -- it's just too bad they did the versioning so=20
long before they announced their target audience change, as a lot of=20
users were deceived into thinking it was ready for them...
But be the upstream issues what they may, the problem for most=20
distribution users including Gentoo users (and devs, BTW) is that support=
=20
for the stable and production-ready version, kde3, ran out WAAYYYY before=
=20
the next version, kde4, was similarly stable and production ready.
"Oh, but there's the kde-sunset overlay."
Yes, but it's officially user-only supported, that is gentoo-dev=20
unsupported, because kde3 is unsupported upstream, as is the qt3 it's=20
built upon, and there's no gentoo-devs interested in taking on the=20
responsibility of continued support under those circumstances. That's=20
not the sort of support stable users tend to be looking for.
Meanwhile, the LTS/enterprise releases still have another year or more of=
=20
kde3 coverage, as that's what was stable and shipping when their LTS=20
product shipped (bar Ubuntu, of course, since they didn't ship an LTS=20
kubuntu precisely because they foresaw exactly this sort of issues coming=
=20
up, despite all the claims of continued support from kde at the time,=20
claims that turned out to be worthless, for the ordinary distribution=20
user -- but in hind sight kde was even then already refocusing their=20
targetting, and weren't talking about the ordinary user any more).
But back on the topic of Gentoo. Gentoo is and always has been a rolling=
=20
upgrade community distribution, that reasonably closely follows=20
upstream. When upstream drops support, Gentoo, without the resources of=20
the enterprise/corporate distributions, has little choice but to=20
ultimately drop support as well. Sure, the packages stay in-tree for=20
awhile sometimes, but they don't actually build with modern gcc against=20
modern system libs, and eventually, treecleaners or someone notices, and=20
they get pulled.
That's not the sort of thing stable users enjoy, for sure. Really,=20
neither do they tend to enjoy the constant updates Gentoo has, changing=20
their work environment out from under them. Good Gentooers soon learn=20
that if they're updating less than once a month, the updates DO pile up,=20
and the process DOES get rough. By three months, an upgrade gets=20
difficult and stressfull, by six months, it's getting easier to start=20
from a brand new stage-3, by a year, which is what Gentoo /does/ /try/ to=
=20
support, a brand new stage-3 is generally going to be much easier than=20
the exotic bugs you'll get trying to update in place. Yet stable users=20
normally /want/ their stuff stable for a year or more, and expect no=20
serious problems on update within their release slot, even a year or more=
=20
out. The all-at-one-time release upgrade, OTOH, is assumed to be the=20
normal case. Meanwhile, gentoo support for stale packages disappears=20
rather soon, relatively, and users are forced into either not updating=20
any more (no security updates) or upgrading. The enterprise/LTS=20
distribution releases at least have a support timeclock that people can=20
schedule their computing life around.
As I mentioned above, it took the kde3/4 fiasco to really open my eyes to=
=20
this, but open them it most certainly did! Generally speaking,=20
enterprise and debian stable are the only ones supporting kde3 still,=20
even tho kde4 isn't yet ready to fill its shoes for production machines.
> For me, I run a mostly stable system and unmasks a few packages that I
> used most frequently since those are the software that I have the time
> to test thoroughly since I work with them all the time. I've been
> running a python 3 overlay (very unstable at that time), but I'm not
> willing to run a full ~arch since most of those software I don't use
> often enough anyway.
Of course, that's where Gentoo excels. It gives you the choice and=20
ability to do just that, even if it's not that well supported. But in=20
fact, because it's so easy and so necessary for stable users at times,=20
there's /enough/ people doing it, that it generally works out=20
/reasonably/ well. But still, tho the problems will be a bit different,=20
I don't think running all ~arch is much different in overall problems=20
than partial, or indeed, all stable, because if nothing else, hardware=20
updates tend to bite all-stable people harder than all ~arch people, and=20
also because stable /is/ a bit stale at times, and it's simply hard to=20
remember what the fix was for that problem that happened over a year ago.
I know I've certainly experienced that myself, running the kernel rcs,=20
when the release is what goes ~arch, and stable is generally a release=20
behind that. So when folks ask about kernel problems on the brand new=20
stable kernel they're just upgrading to now, it's typically six months or=
=20
more since I encountered the same issue, and I've often long since=20
forgotten the details, as I'm on to newer and different problems. The=20
full release would seem to be about right, I'd think, for most users not=20
wishing to push the edge, as it's at least new enough the edge pushers=20
still remember the issues and how to fix them, while being old enough the=
=20
big issues all generally have fairly well known solutions. If I'm not=20
mistaken (I run direct linus kernels and don't touch gentoo's kernel=20
distribution at all, tho I know when they go stable since I follow the=20
dev list and see the announcements/warnings there), current release is=20
what gets ~arched for at least ~x86 and ~amd64 on Gentoo, so that's what=20
I'd think would be about the best place to be, on a package I happen to=20
follow reasonably closely, upstream. Similarly for a couple others I=20
follow reasonably closely upstream.
--=20
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman