Re: [gentoo-user] Knock on wood

[Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>]

090812 Alan E. Davis wrote:
> I'm a little reluctant to say this, but it's been a couple of months now
> since I switched back to Gentoo, and I want to shout out my pleasure
> that this system has been performing admirably well this time around,
> in comparison with earlier installations.  None of the earlier installations
> were unacceptable, in fact, Gentoo remained my favorite.  I moved to Ubuntu
> because maintainance of the Gentoo boxes was much more time consuming.

Yes, that seems to be the usual reason users leave Gentoo:
like owning a dog, you have to find time to maintain/exercise it.
However, unlike a dog, you can catch up after a long absence:
I've just finished updating the system in my stand-by box,
which had hardly been touched since 0809, but everything's ok now.

> I've watched Gentoo plummet in the popularity ratings, eg at distrowatch.

It got a lot of attention from the neophiles c 2002 ,
but as with everything they soon moved on to the next latest fad.
Gentoo is not for everyone: compare 'Financial Times',
one of the World's best newspapers, but it takes 3 days to read 1 issue.

> I've watched as the best documentation EVER on Gentoo wiki
> as fallen off the edge of the world.

Admin got neglected awhile, but my impression is that lessons were learned
& the basic running of the distro is now well-managed.

> Now, however, I have not had any such problem, or maybe I should say,
> the one or two times I have it was easy to figure things out.
> Is it because I'm more experienced, or perhaps more cautious?
> I don't know, but I tend to think the distribution is more mature.

If you insist on being at the cutting edge, sometimes you hurt your fingers.
I haven't had a serious problem with Gentoo since installing it 2003
& again in my latest machine 2007 .  Just last week,
after Mozilla made sound the default setting for Xulrunner + Firefox,
I entered a bug -- I don't want sound software in my machine --
& got a very prompt fix from the dev involved (thanks again).

> And never a cranky whine, like on other lists, never any complaint.

There was a silly troll last week, but everyone ignored it:
yes, that's a sign of maturity.

> Thank you to all the developers and all the list people
> who have consistently given the highest and most professional level
> of assistance to a rather clueless user.
> This is typical, and always has been with Gentoo's community.

The devs do need to get regular thanks for their unpaid work.

-- 
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