Is it true? "Why did Gentoo Linux fade into obscurity?"

[Pearlseattle]

Hi

Detected through this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/syndicated-linux-news-67/lxer-why-did-gentoo-linux-fade-into-obscurity-4175587682/

Original article:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3109830/linux/why-did-gentoo-linux-fade-into-obscurity.html

What do you think?
I have other questions / challenges related to this theme.

The second part of the post (of the article - not of the linuxquestions-thread) is especially bad:

[NeddySeagoon]

Moved from Other Things Gentoo to Gentoo Chat.

Every few years we get a thread like this. They continue for 6 to 18 months then go dormant.
Rather than attaching this post to one of the old dead ones, its time for a new thread.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[kernelOfTruth]

[Ant P.]

Better question: why did yellow journalism sites like Infoworld fade into obscurity?

[Logicien]

When something pass between Gentoo and the sun, it create an obscurity, a Gentoo or a sun eclipse, depending on where you are.


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Paul

[mikegpitt]

I read this a few days ago. Gentoo does present challenges from time to time, but really I've never had any real major issues in the 12+ years I've been running Gentoo on my machines. Especially once the machine is up and running and configured. I really don't spend much time at all tinkering with things once things are up and running.

One point they bring up that does have merit is when the Gentoo Wiki crashed permanently. That was a sad day, and a huge wealth of information was lost. I even donated to the developers in the hope that it would come back, but it never did. A new wiki exists now, but the old was was lost forever. These days it's the Arch linux wiki that I end up on to look up technical details.

[danomac]

This popped up in my news feed so I figured I would post it here.

Why did Gentoo Linux fade into obscurity?

Some of the comments are kind of daft, like the comment on the USE flags. Packages are different so flags will be different, unless he was talking about flags with different names toggling the same functionality.

[Bigun]

Attention span... lack thereof
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"It's ok, they might have guns but we have flowers." - Perpetual Victim

[Muso]

Nice round up of some decent opinion. Also, the DVD review was good.

I have a relatively new Toshiba laptop that's collecting dust, I think I might just put Gentoo on it. Will have to use the ISO on a USB dongle, as the laptop has no optical drive.
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"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think" ~ Dorothy Parker
2021 is the year of the Linux Desktop!

[patrix_neo]

I think the soul did go away...btw, nice topic!
The Dave, or some, was fed up. He even entered the dark side (MS).

But, wow. What a person.

[Muso]

[patrix_neo]

[John R. Graham]

Merged above 6 posts from a thread in Off the Wall. I apologize in advance if this has caused any OTW denizens to burst into flames.

- John
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I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[energyman76b]

[patrix_neo]

[madchaz]

Hard to "fade into obscurity" when you never really went into the spotlight.

Gentoo never was, never will be (I hope) and certainly isn't right now a "mainstream distribution".

Installing Gentoo is NOT easy. I like to say installing Gentoo for the first time is a very good Linux class. You learn the nuts and bolts of how a Linux OS is built, because you build it from the ground up. By the time you get it booting with network, if you'd never done it before, you've usually learned a lot.

It's all about "what can I learn to tweak without breaking my system" and "how does this work?".

It's also a very good multi-tool, if you know how to use it. With many distributions dropping support for older hardware (an understandable, if annoying move) in the default kernel, knowing how to compile your own kernel becomes a useful skill ability again, making gentoo, surprisingly, a good fit for slightly older hardware. Ok, this is one of those "I never imagined I'd say this one day" kind of moments.

At least, that's my experience. YMMD.
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Someone asked me once if I suffered from mental illness. I told him I enjoyed every second of it.
www.madchaz.com A small candle of a website. As my lab specs on it.

[frsty]

However the feeling of this so called 'fading into obscurity' can easily be interpreted as signs of a dying distro by newcomers. I've been using Gentoo quite some time now (a few months), i love it and did a lot of reading to understand Gentoo (ok I still don't know jack) and even I had this feeling of 'abandonment'. I know this sounds a bit theatrical but I can imagine this might cause some people to skip this one in favor of a more lively distro.

[dlaor]

Looking at the "visitors online" counter at the bottom of the root page of these forums I have the feeling that more people are using Gentoo in the last half a year or so: where last year the number used to be around 250, nowadays it seems to be between 400-500, at one time last month it was well above 700.

It would be interesting to see the progression of these numbers over time; does anyone know if they are recorded?

[_Nomad_]

As far as I see it gentoo is very much a distribution for "the dedicated". You either love it or install another os within a day or two. I'm fine with that.
Gentoo will only ever appeal to people who really care what's on their harddrives. Investing 4(+) hours installing libreoffice on a single computer requires the user to be of a different mindset than simply "get it up and running".
That said I heavily doubt gentoo is falling into obscurity. Simply retracting into its own niche (as meant to be)

[fpemud]

[Hu]

I think guest is anyone who is not currently logged in. Some users might log in only when they want to post, in which case they would often be reported as a guest even if they are a longtime and valuable community member. This could be especially the case for people who contribute to Gentoo without being active forum participants. Some developers rarely post to the forums, even if they are frequently active working on the Portage tree or other important aspects of Gentoo. They might choose not to bother logging in if they only want to read what is being said, but do not expect to post responses.

[PseudoKrazy]

Back in 2003 when I first started using Gentoo, it hovered around in the top 5 on distrowatch. I know that Distrowatch is not the best gauge of popularity, but it's really the best we have. These days its normally down in the 30's.

So it would seem that its much less popular these days than when it was new and 'fresh'. Doesn't bother me, its still a great OS.

[gerard27]

No distro has so much choice coupled with a superb package manager.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

[Buffoon]

[Fitzcarraldo]