Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo or Linux from Scratch - Perspectives?

[Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl>]

Paul Hoy schreef:
> See inline
> 
> 
> On Aug 14, 2005, at 5:51 PM, Holly Bostick wrote:
> 
>> Nick Rout schreef:
>>
>>> On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 13:12:31 -0700
>>> Zac Medico wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi Paul,
>>>>
>>>> Are we really far behind?  That's difficult to believe.  For what 
>>>> packages specifically?  Do
>>>>
>>>
>>> you know how to unmask unstable packages (marked M or M~ at
>>> packages.gentoo.org)?
>>>
>>> Unstable does not really cut it IMHO. I am a gentoo enthusiast  through
>>> and through, but plonking something in portage with a ~ beside it  does
>>> not constitute a release of a recent version IMHO.
>>>
>>>
>> OK, I'll bite. What then do you consider "a release of a recent  version"
>> to be constituted from?
>>
> 
> I don't really understand your question. The most recent version to  me
> coincides to a release date closest to whatever today is.

OK, so what you're saying is that an application's entry into Portage
unstable does not constitute a 'release' of the package in Gentoo terms,
as far as you're concerned? So until Firefox 1.0.6 and KDE 3.4.2
propagate down to stable (which could take time, admittedly), it's not
actually released? Well, to each his or her own, I guess.

> 
>> If it's been released upstream, and it's in Portage a couple of hours
>> later, so I can install it, I don't know what more you could want....
>> what, you want a Mandrake- (or worse, still, Debian) -style wait of
>> months before you can use the upstream version?
>>
> 
> I don't agree with you. There are many examples where a file that has 
> been released upstream has not found its way into Portage. I've 
> provided examples elsewhere in this thread. You can also compare with 
> the Fedora feedlist.

Yes, I know. I'm creating a list of interesting programs I've discovered
that aren't in Portage or b.g.o, to practice my ebuild writing skills.

But you know, I don't give the first hairy hoot about the Fedora
feedlist. This idea that 'marking' a package 'stable' is some kind of
magic bullet that actually *makes* the package stable is starting to get
on my nerves a bit. What Gentoo marks or doesn't mark the package, or in
fact whether or not it's in Portage, generally has nothing to do with
the status of the package itself. There are plenty of perfectly stable
packages in Gentoo unstable, plenty of stable ebuilds (meaning that they
compile the application correctly, and beyond that point it depends on
the upstream stability) in b.g.o, and even a few on breakmygentoo.org.
And plenty of 'stable' packages that just act wonky in various ways as
upstream manages the changes in whatever they're doing (migrating to the
freedesktop standard, implementing DirectX 9 support, working around
video driver bugs, kernel bugs, scheduler changes, you name it).

I use what I need, and I get what I need from wherever it may happen to
be. Most of it comes from Portage, of course, but I've got some ebuilds
in my overlay from b.g.o, a couple from Project Utopia, and some perl
modules from cpan. It all works pretty well, and when it doesn't, I
either ditch the package until it works a bit better, or fix it myself
(and report what I had to do up the chain, if appropriate). It all looks
a bit patchwork I suppose, but it's my patchwork, and so I know what
sticky-out-bit goes where... most of the time. And I decide if there's
going to be sticky-out-bits at all...there's no way, with an ATI card,
that I'm going anywhere near the new modular X for quite a while, for
example. But not because of Gentoo... because there's way too many
upstream cooks for me to think they're going to concoct a 'stable' brew,
*for me*, anytime soon. I said before and I do believe that the Gentoo
dev team will do their very best (and that's damn good) to provide
stable ebuilds that work as well as possible, but there's way too much
whitewater flowing down the channel for me to believe that even they can
successfully guide me through these difficult transitions.

It just seems to me that if you want or expect a team of well-paid
experts monitoring all possible inconveniences and smoothing them over
before you even see them... well, then Fedora would be the place to be.
Or SuSE. Gentoo or Ubuntu, on the other hand....

Holly
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