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I heard someone say "Gentoo is just a meme"
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Is Gentoo a meme ?
Yes
13%
 13%  [ 5 ]
No
86%
 86%  [ 32 ]
Total Votes : 37

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get52
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:09 am    Post subject: I heard someone say "Gentoo is just a meme" Reply with quote

I heard someone say "Gentoo is just a meme", what did they mean by this?
I know it's a Gen Z / Millennial phrasing but I can't wrap my head around whether something being a meme is a good or bad thing, it seems to be interchangeable.

So I guess my question this, if Gentoo is a meme like she said than what is it that makes it a meme and is it a bad thing that it is a meme if so?



-get52
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LemurFromTheId
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know if it's good or bad, but I know that computers are just a meme, eating is just a meme, left-handed scissors are just a meme, history is just a meme and replying to someone on discussion forums is just a meme.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds like you've been hanging around some very shallow people.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ant P.,

As a first post, it looks like a spammer in waiting but I'm old and cynical :)
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
Ant P.,
get52

As a first post, it looks like a spammer in waiting but I'm old and cynical :)


I don't blame you but I installed gentoo over the weekend and when my friend told me "Gentoo is just a meme" I didn't know what to think of it.
She uses Debian so obviously her opinion doesn't matter 8) total linux noob 8)

sincerely,
get52
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

May I recommend to use your own head. That's what I'm doing. Once you get into habit you'll notice it does not matter any more what others think.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This must be a troll...

For starters does it really matter what people think? if I listened to my colleagues and friends I would be running OSX or Win10. Likewise it has never been established whether something is a meme is a positive or a negative. ANYTHING can be expressed or taken as a positive or a negative. Lets take the stance that stating something is a meme is a negative, what does that even mean for the meme culture? Arch is a meme, arch are renowned in doing stuff that breaks stuff when every other distro is fine #archProblem is a hashtag for a reason. Debian is a meme in being the ancient library distro. Ubuntu became a meme when they planned to drop 32bit support and valve went "ok then we will move"

All of this is a classic case of Contempt Culture as it is easier to rag on that outside of your context boundary than accept what is not right within your context boundary. What makes Gentoo a "meme" in the linux world is (almost) everything is compiled from source and the "lulz" come from that the other distro's just install. But then you flip it around where Debian-based distro's patch the fk out of everything so while the end user doesn't have to compile, what they get is... who knows.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 1:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

get52
-------------------

Naib wrote:
This must be a troll...

For starters does it really matter what people think? if I listened to my colleagues and friends I would be running OSX or Win10. Likewise it has never been established whether something is a meme is a positive or a negative. ANYTHING can be expressed or taken as a positive or a negative. Lets take the stance that stating something is a meme is a negative, what does that even mean for the meme culture? Arch is a meme, arch are renowned in doing stuff that breaks stuff when every other distro is fine #archProblem is a hashtag for a reason. Debian is a meme in being the ancient library distro. Ubuntu became a meme when they planned to drop 32bit support and valve went "ok then we will move"

All of this is a classic case of Contempt Culture as it is easier to rag on that outside of your context boundary than accept what is not right within your context boundary. What makes Gentoo a "meme" in the linux world is (almost) everything is compiled from source and the "lulz" come from that the other distro's just install. But then you flip it around where Debian-based distro's patch the fk out of everything so while the end user doesn't have to compile, what they get is... who knows.


I see so calling something a meme is like saying it is stupid right? like for the example:
debian is a meme because its packages are decades old
debian is stupid because its packages are decades old

this makes sense, thank you for the clarifaction. -get52

signed,
get52
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 5:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't say "stupid" as a meme is something that can be related to as in there is something about a phase/picture/place/thing/ which is understood without having to discuss it. It can be negative, it can be positive AND this is why it comes down to on what context was it used

So the unspoken context of Gentoo being a meme is more than likely "going out of the way to compile packages, when others do not have to bother"

In short, don't worry about it, you will have a deeper understanding of how a distro works and more recent packages for a bit of compile time
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naib wrote:
What makes Gentoo a "meme" in the linux world is (almost) everything is compiled from source and the "lulz" come from that the other distro's just install.

And then comes the irony that 99% of software in the world today is Javascript, compiled from scratch every time it's run.

They have it worse than Gentoo at that point, the initial barrier to entry means we don't throw around entire browser engines with reckless abandon.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Richard Dawkins coined the word 'meme'.

https://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/02/whats-in-a-meme/

Quote:
The meme first appeared in Richard Dawkins’ first book, “The Selfish Gene” (1976), and was an attempt to understand why some behaviours, from an evolutionary perspective, seemed to make no sense but, somehow or other, were found to be very common in human societies. As Dawkins emphasised, natural selection is a ruthless judge of its subjects and any frailty, physical or behavioural, is almost inevitably rewarded by a rapid exit from the gene pool. It therefore followed that any widespread behaviour, prevalent in a thriving population, no matter how immediately inexplicable, should give some advantage in terms of gene survival.


So, if Gentoo Linux is a meme, its use makes no sense but gives some advantage. :lol:
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

get52,

We can laugh at ourselves too. See -funroll-loops.
The original is long gone but mirrors keep popping up.

How many other distros provide all to tools you need to do say,
Code:
emerge @debian
or
Code:
emerge @ubuntu
or
Code:
emerge @<any_distro>

You have a bit of work to do but the tools are all there.

Even Google does
Code:
emerge @chromeos
well, they used to, I'm not sure if its still current.

I'm not sure if you understand that Gentoo is only a set of tools you use to design your own Linux distro.
Gentoo is the ebuild repository ::gentoo and the portage package manager. Everything else is upstream.
Your Gentoo install is unique. You made it the way you wanted.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo is the most powerful meme for me. So I voted YES
I cannot understand the most of the Gentoo fans here on this forum voted NO
:cry:

The poll question is
"Is Gentoo a meme ?"
Please adjust the title of this thread, it is not "just" a meme polled.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 2:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't be inclined to adjust the title. See the supporting text reproduced below. It appears that it's the poll text that's excessively abbreviated. Most people appear to have gotten that.

get52 wrote:
... I installed gentoo over the weekend and when my friend told me "Gentoo is just a meme"...
@get52, you could remove all doubt regarding whether you're "just a troll" by answering one simple question about your Gentoo install. What's the output of this command:
Code:
ls -ld /etc/portage/make.profile
- John
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:38 pm    Post subject: Re: I heard someone say "Gentoo is just a meme" Reply with quote

get52 wrote:
...if Gentoo is a meme like she said than what is it that makes it a meme and is it a bad thing that it is a meme if so?
-get52


Gentoo would be a meme if it were trite instead of fundamental and derivative instead of original. Something trite is worn out; hackneyed; used so many times that it is no longer interesting or effective. Examples of memes are things like a picture of an actor or dog with some extreme facial gesture, tweeted endlessly with variations of cartoon-like annotations. To say that something is merely a meme is extremely dismissive (or a wise view of internet crap that is mere propaganda).

The fundamental idea of Gentoo -- organize all of the system as a product of operations on a single directory (/usr/portage) with global configurability of features -- makes Gentoo not a mere distribution of linux but a meta-system for creating purpose-built operating systems. It stands unique in the linux world and nothing compares to it in power. (whether that power is effective or not? Well, I have my own amateur *kit-free systemd-free operating system built with Gentoo, Google has their own internal OS built on Gentoo, and Calculate Linux has a commercially-supported (in Russia) client/server office system built on Gentoo.)

As far as I can see, any other linux distro could be built with Gentoo. e.g. Void Linux is a linux that uses runit as init, musl as libc, and libressl as ssl. It could be built with Gentoo. Debian has systemd as init, and the "Debian kernel" with a fairly standard set of packages built with all-things-included. That could be built with Gentoo. The product (not the infrastructure) of any other linux distro could be built with Gentoo.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo is not a meme.

funroll-loops is, however.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

eccerr0r wrote:
Gentoo is not a meme.

funroll-loops is, however.
funroll-loops was created because gentoo is a meme
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo is considered to be a "meme"[1] because it's also considered to be one of the hardest and most difficult Linux distributions to install (and use?) by the general audience of those who—I assume—didn't even read the manual. That's why it has become some kind of challenge to install it, display some screenshot of it (with anime or manga) and then being able to collect large amounts of Internet points from your fellow friends on the Internet.

1. If we use the meaning of "meme" used by the younger people on the Internet.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

John R. Graham wrote:
@get52, you could remove all doubt regarding whether you're "just a troll" by answering one simple question about your Gentoo install. What's the output of this command:
Code:
ls -ld /etc/portage/make.profile
- John

output:
Code:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 59 Oct  4 09:00 /etc/portage/make.profile -> ../../var/db/repos/gentoo/profiles/default/linux/amd64/17.0

--get52

NeddySeagoon wrote:
get52,

We can laugh at ourselves too. See -funroll-loops.
The original is long gone but mirrors keep popping up.

How many other distros provide all to tools you need to do say,
Code:
emerge @debian
or
Code:
emerge @ubuntu
or
Code:
emerge @<any_distro>

You have a bit of work to do but the tools are all there.

Even Google does
Code:
emerge @chromeos
well, they used to, I'm not sure if its still current.

I'm not sure if you understand that Gentoo is only a set of tools you use to design your own Linux distro.
Gentoo is the ebuild repository ::gentoo and the portage package manager. Everything else is upstream.
Your Gentoo install is unique. You made it the way you wanted.


That's really cool, is there a gentoo page that says more about emerge @debian, @ubuntu etc?
I want to know more -get52

signed,
get52
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 12:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@get52, Excellent! Welcome to Gentoo!

- John
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

get52 wrote:
That's really cool, is there a gentoo page that says more about emerge @debian, @ubuntu etc?


This is a feature called sets in portage, the package manager. Read about it here: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/sets

You can define your own sets, so you could define one named after any distribution, including all packages needed to 'emulate' that distro
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

get52,

You are hooked now :)
That's the attitude to make Gentoo work for you.

arnvidr has pointed to the sets page, which is what I had in mind.

You could also write an ebuild like say, kde-meta, that lists other packages.
Sets are just lists of packages.
ebuilds allow you to define versions and USE flags too.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure about Gentoo but "Install Gentoo" as an answer to any computer related question is a meme, a bit like "have you tried turning it off and on again?".
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/install-gentoo
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Proinsias
Thank for that Meme-Page Link. Just do not visit it without uMatrix Plugin or another Addblocker.

I like the Example: "How do I keep my iphone from running out of battery so quickly? A: Install Gentoo" :)
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 10:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo isn't hard to install anyway... it only takes Three commands
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