[gentoo-dev] Re: where goes Gentoo?

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Chris Gianelloni posted <1123076347.31550.17.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net>,
excerpted below,  on Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:39:07 -0400:

>> Administrating a Gentoo system takes time - much time, but ...
> 
> This is something that I think most people forget.  Running Gentoo makes
> you a Linux Systems Administrator.  Sure, you're only being the
> administrator for your machine, which might only have one user, but you're
> the admin.  With some of the other distributions, *they* are the admin,
> and you're just a user.  They make assumptions for you and limit what you
> can and cannot do (without an enormous amount of work to bypass their
> limits).  This is especially apparent in the many cases where users expect
> Gentoo to do everything for them, when it doesn't.

I've found myself emphasizing this same point a number of times.  There
are general system users that don't care /what/ they are on.  Those are
/just/ users.  However, by definition, /Gentoo/ user == sysadmin,
full-stop (period, for those USians not familiar with international
English, "full-stop" seems to me to convey the idea better).  You mention
the lack of limits, and Sven mentioned the time it takes, but my emphasis
tends to be on the responsibilities of the job.  A good sysadmin invests
the time and energy necessary to keep a healthy system, known vuln and
exploit free, but more than that, "clean" and simple, because (s)he
realizes the consequences of a failure to do so.  A good sysadmin knows a
fair amount about how their system works, in ordered to do that.  A good
sysadmin enjoys the job, or finds other work.

Gentoo makes being a good sysadmin easy.  However, by the same token,
because it assumes that admin is in place, it tends to make being an
ordinary "user" on an admin-less Gentoo system very difficult.  Those that
don't like being sysadmins, really should be looking at a distribution
that, as you said, really takes on much of the sysadmin duties as part of
the services provided by the distribution.   The best Gentoo user, then,
because being a Gentoo user by definition means being a sysadmin, truly
enjoys both the responsibilities and privileges of system administration. 
Again, if that's /not/ the case, one really should be reexamining their
choice of Gentoo, as it's really not the best fit distribution available
for those who'd really rather be doing something other than system
administration.

-- 
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 in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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