| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| How alive/dead is Gentoo for you? (Only vote, if you use Gentoo for at least one year.) |
| Even better than ever |
|
42% |
[ 98 ] |
| Hasn’t changed much |
|
23% |
[ 54 ] |
| Could be better |
|
24% |
[ 55 ] |
| In bad shape, there’s not much left |
|
9% |
[ 21 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 228 |
|
| Author |
Message |
TheWhiteKnight
Apprentice
Joined: 08 Nov 2003
Posts: 180
Location: West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania
|
 Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:50 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Gergan Penkov wrote: | Is there some sort of pandemonium in the Foren DB or simply someone from the admins are playing tricks on us:
***This is his first post***, he has registered himself 3 years ago and now posts for the first time, remembering the password for all this time... or intentionally creating a dupe account to post this now  |
Hey now watch it. I registered in 2003 and I remembered my pwd after all of this time. I was never very active on here until recently either. I can see it. Though t WOULD be funny if it was a Developer who came out and said... "Gotcha".
- Josh
_________________
It's interesting how much you learn, you really DON'T know about computers, when you don't have an operating system that configures everything for you. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
there are loads of devs who are registered here but who have only made one or two posts over the past few years
_________________
https://otw20.com/ OTW20 The new place for off the wall chat |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Syntaxis
Guru
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 511
Location: London, UK
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 2:04 am Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| randy_waterhouse wrote: | | Syntaxis made a really nice point re: Debian's process for approving packages. |
No... I was enquiring about the process by which the Gentoo release engineering team decides whether or not an architecture is to be deemed "supported" (as opposed to unsupported) as part of a given official Gentoo release, by way of reference to Debian's own architecture qualification criteria.
Unfortunately, it looks like the information isn't publicly available (or if it is, I can't find it and nobody else here appears to know where it is). Either way, I think it's a bug that should be fixed. Though, of course, that's only my opinion - I guess my next step is to try re-posting my request on the releng mailing list to see whether anyone in a position to fix it agrees. Ta, cokey and curtis, for your help.
_________________
The Debian User Forums - help them grow! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:56 am Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| Syntaxis wrote: | | randy_waterhouse wrote: | | Syntaxis made a really nice point re: Debian's process for approving packages. |
No... I was enquiring about the process by which the Gentoo release engineering team decides whether or not an architecture is to be deemed "supported" (as opposed to unsupported) as part of a given official Gentoo release, by way of reference to Debian's own architecture qualification criteria.
Unfortunately, it looks like the information isn't publicly available (or if it is, I can't find it and nobody else here appears to know where it is). Either way, I think it's a bug that should be fixed. Though, of course, that's only my opinion - I guess my next step is to try re-posting my request on the releng mailing list to see whether anyone in a position to fix it agrees. Ta, cokey and curtis, for your help. |
| curtis119 about 10 posts back wrote: |
The Releng Project (which is made up of members of the ARCH teams - for instance, the Releng Lead is also the Lead for the x86 ARCH) decides for itself what arches it will support. They do that internally and consult with others as the need arises (like security, QA, etc...). Each Arch Project in and of itself decides if it's arch will be supported. If there is concern from others outside the Project they bring it up on the -dev mailing list. If no consensus can be reached on the list the Council may be called in to make a final decision but we try really hard to reach a consensus (and we are usually very successful at reaching a consensus). |
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kernelcowboy
Guru
Joined: 14 Feb 2004
Posts: 391
Location: New Plymouth, New Zealand
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ian wrote: | I dunno...if I was pissed off I would just leave and not say goodbye.
I don't run Gentoo on a computer that I *need*. |
I do, 2 laptops, 1 amd64 desktop, 1 server, 1 linode. Gentoo rocks. I can't leave because
I love the forum and portage in general. Some issues, not many.
I have some gripes with Java on Gentoo, but all in all, I don't think I'd like any distro any better. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| kernelcowboy wrote: | | Ian wrote: | I dunno...if I was pissed off I would just leave and not say goodbye.
I don't run Gentoo on a computer that I *need*. |
I do, 2 laptops, 1 amd64 desktop, 1 server, 1 linode. Gentoo rocks. I can't leave because
I love the forum and portage in general. Some issues, not many.
I have some gripes with Java on Gentoo, but all in all, I don't think I'd like any distro any better. |
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060703-newsletter.xml
Third article from the top.
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RazielFMX
l33t
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 835
Location: NY, USA
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | kernelcowboy wrote: | | Ian wrote: | I dunno...if I was pissed off I would just leave and not say goodbye.
I don't run Gentoo on a computer that I *need*. |
I do, 2 laptops, 1 amd64 desktop, 1 server, 1 linode. Gentoo rocks. I can't leave because
I love the forum and portage in general. Some issues, not many.
I have some gripes with Java on Gentoo, but all in all, I don't think I'd like any distro any better. |
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060703-newsletter.xml
Third article from the top. |
FINALLY!
_________________
I am not anti-systemd; I am pro-choice. If being the latter makes you feel that I am the former, then so be it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kernelcowboy
Guru
Joined: 14 Feb 2004
Posts: 391
Location: New Plymouth, New Zealand
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| RazielFMX wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | kernelcowboy wrote: | | Ian wrote: | I dunno...if I was pissed off I would just leave and not say goodbye.
I don't run Gentoo on a computer that I *need*. |
I do, 2 laptops, 1 amd64 desktop, 1 server, 1 linode. Gentoo rocks. I can't leave because
I love the forum and portage in general. Some issues, not many.
I have some gripes with Java on Gentoo, but all in all, I don't think I'd like any distro any better. |
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060703-newsletter.xml
Third article from the top. |
FINALLY! |
I know! My gripes aren't popular though. I just don't want to compile all the java, or I want the option.
I think I'll have the make my own ebuilds to get around it. (for example, i don't want to put tomcat
on a server along with 30 other packages just so i can compile it. i have no intention of ever compiling
anything in production. so, just 'cus it's gentoo isn't good enough.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Syntaxis
Guru
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 511
Location: London, UK
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:49 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | curtis119 about 10 posts back wrote: | |
The Releng Project (which is made up of members of the ARCH teams - for instance, the Releng Lead is also the Lead for the x86 ARCH) decides for itself what arches it will support. They do that internally and consult with others as the need arises (like security, QA, etc...). Each Arch Project in and of itself decides if it's arch will be supported. If there is concern from others outside the Project they bring it up on the -dev mailing list. If no consensus can be reached on the list the Council may be called in to make a final decision but we try really hard to reach a consensus (and we are usually very successful at reaching a consensus). |
No, that has very little bearing on what I'm looking for.
I already know all of that - I'm looking for more detailed information as to exactly how Releng and the individual Arch Project go about making their decisions - i.e. the specific metrics and criteria they use to divide architectures up into the "supported" and "unsupported" subcategories (see the 2006.0 Release Information page for an example of architectures having been split in such a way).
I am looking for informational resources equivalent to:
| Syntaxis even more than 10 posts back wrote: | |
If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo?
_________________
The Debian User Forums - help them grow! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Syntaxis,
This is where you are getting confused. As far as I know there is NO list of qualifications to be followed. The various arches just decide for themselves one day "I think we are ready". And so they are.
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| Syntaxis wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | curtis119 about 10 posts back wrote: | |
The Releng Project (which is made up of members of the ARCH teams - for instance, the Releng Lead is also the Lead for the x86 ARCH) decides for itself what arches it will support. They do that internally and consult with others as the need arises (like security, QA, etc...). Each Arch Project in and of itself decides if it's arch will be supported. If there is concern from others outside the Project they bring it up on the -dev mailing list. If no consensus can be reached on the list the Council may be called in to make a final decision but we try really hard to reach a consensus (and we are usually very successful at reaching a consensus). |
No, that has very little bearing on what I'm looking for.
I already know all of that - I'm looking for more detailed information as to exactly how Releng and the individual Arch Project go about making their decisions - i.e. the specific metrics and criteria they use to divide architectures up into the "supported" and "unsupported" subcategories (see the 2006.0 Release Information page for an example of architectures having been split in such a way).
I am looking for informational resources equivalent to:
| Syntaxis even more than 10 posts back wrote: | |
If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
| cokehabit about two years ago wrote: | | i want a distro with arch qualifications |
_________________
https://otw20.com/ OTW20 The new place for off the wall chat |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:07 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| Syntaxis wrote: |
If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus.
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:11 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
and look what a state that has made it 
_________________
https://otw20.com/ OTW20 The new place for off the wall chat |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:39 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
and look what a state that has made it |
Yes, just look. It's working quite well In My Humble Opinion. And in the opinion of all the devs who have improved Gentoo by using that method...
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
quag7
Apprentice
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 288
Location: Marana, Arizona - USA
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:02 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: |
If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
One thing that was clear to me from the outset was that Gentoo was not intended to be all things for all people. It seems to have started as a "developer's distro" (or tweaker's distro) as it is still occasionally described in reviews, and has grown more general purpose as time has gone on. It has, to speak "grown toward the center" from the geeky outer reaches.
Because so many of us have gotten a charge out of this distro maybe sometimes we forget that - as an example - Gentoo is expressly not Debian the same way Debian is expressly not Gentoo. I've had this discussion with several people who swear to me that they use a single distribution which is perfectly appropriate for all scenarios. I happily have both Debian and Gentoo machines on my home network here and each of them serves their purpose well.
Every decision has a cost. A distro with very tight policies can lead to crustiness (witness Debian's stable branch), and a distro with very loose policies means sometimes things aren't going to work perfectly, but there are benefits there as well. Ideally no distribution that takes itself seriously ought to fail horribly at any of the things people want, but it will be better at certain things than others.
I've yet to find a distribution without tradeoffs. In the end you pick the one with the best balance for your needs.
One question is whether or not the ebuild in question is just a package with some problems or whether it represents some kind of trend in Gentoo's overall quality.
9 out of 540 packages, in the end, failed to compile on my last emerge -e world with an ~x86 version of gcc, and none of the ones that failed were marked as unstable.
2 of them compiled when I merged them on their own after the emerge -e world was done, leaving 7 that refused to merge out of 540.
That's approximately a 1.3% failure rate (or, as I prefer to think of it, a 98.7% quality rating). Whether that percentage is consistent with portage as a whole I don't know but I have no reason to believe it isn't. That seems about consistent with my experiences with Gentoo over the years. Considering how many packages there are in portage, and all of the possible permutations of dependencies and their versions, USE flags, etc., I find it hard to be critical.
This doesn't strike me as "sloppy," even if occasionally some things do fall through the cracks, including some unaddressed bugs and process issues. I think it's tempting, especially when we're particularly ticked off, to assign our individual problems as "trends" within the distribution. In no way do I want to diminish the original poster's frustration; obviously we all want 100% quality and we want the processes for dealing with issues to work 100% of the time. I'm not qualified to say how much room for improvement there is, but it's far more interesting to address these problems individually and light a candle, rather than curse the darkness.
Maybe what we should be talking about when we experience these problems is how to get them fixed individually rather than taking it out on Gentoo as a whole. Just my suggestion; in the end, what we really want is that ebuild fixed, right? If I offered anyone the choice between (a) ranting and letting off steam vs (b) getting the problem fixed, which would most people choose?
Another question I have is whether or not it makes sense to answer angry flames with more irritation. Angry flames are a matter of course; this is not the first blast Gentoo has taken on these forums and it is not the last. One possible improvement that we all can add, users and developers, is to be a bit of a heatsink for flames like this, and attempt to address the root problem constructively rather than get offended or annoyed. I don't necessarily think that doing this condones or abets the flame or having a bad or abusive attitude, but it does, especially when the thread is read in the future, when it is mostly done with, really reflect positively on the Gentoo community - users and developers - at large. It is the same reason why we all appreciate patient parents and teachers.
The reason is because - and this is just my opinion - angrily calling a person on their attitude is unlikely to prevent further flames. Angrily responding to a flame adds noise and little signal, even if such a response may be, all things being equal, deserved.
A person who realizes that their flame may have been a little too strident is likely to come to this conclusion on their own, and I've seen an awful lot of apologies on these forums following really frustrated rants - especially when a few kind souls helped to address the problem and the person who posted the initial flame started feeling a little bad about their tone.
I've noticed a few people on these forums already have adopted this policy, and it's an amazng thing to read a torrent of angry abuse, followed by a sober, "This is how you fix the problem" post from someone who doesn't even acknowledge the inappropriateness of the tone of the initial message.
If addressing people who flame with a corrective "drop the attitude" response had a positive long term effect overall, maybe there'd be merit in it, but I don't think angry, disciplinary responses really serve much purpose. But that's just my opinion. However, it comes from over 22 years of reading and posting in technical forums online.
That being said, it does behoove anyone who posts here to allow themselves 30 minutes cooling off time (at least) before hitting the submit button. It's a hard habit to get into but in the long term far more constructive if indeed the objective is to have the problem addressed.
I think we can all agree that Gentoo - and Linux in general - and even more generally, computers - can be frustrating to the point of tearing out your hair, especially if you're under time constraints. Flames, especially the "BAH GENTOO I'M LEAVING" posts, serve no constructive purpose that I know of. The response is less likely to be, "Gee, how could we have kept that person here" and more likely, "Good riddance." This is true of any community, and any message board. Whereas, a genuine righteous complaint stated constructively and detailing your problems and experiences is far more likely to bring people into the thread to help, because *we've all been there*. Frustrated, with broken systems, not knowing how to proceed. All processes break down occasionally. There is nothing in the land of zeroes and ones and millions of logic gates opening and closing that cannot, eventually, be fixed.
Just my two cents. Worth probably even less than that
_________________
http://www.dataswamp.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
and look what a state that has made it |
Yes, just look. It's working quite well In My Humble Opinion. And in the opinion of all the devs who have improved Gentoo by using that method... |
| Jules Winnfield wrote: | | You go play the blind man, Me? My eyes are wide fuckin' open |
It's this argument again, this goes on and on and on... We have groups of people debating whether other groups of people can debate on whether other groups of people can make decisions. And no-one can decide... Gentoo is in the big time now and cracks are appearing and no amount of other groups being created is going to change the fundamental fact that Gentoo needs a heirachy because it's marxist socialism structure which works so well on paper doesn't work in practise
_________________
https://otw20.com/ OTW20 The new place for off the wall chat |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
yagami
Apprentice
Joined: 12 May 2002
Posts: 269
Location: Leiria, Portugal
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | I think we can all agree that Gentoo - and Linux in general - and even more generally, computers - can be frustrating to the point of tearing out your hair, especially if you're under time constraints. |
yes , i just experiencied it two days ago
i was really frustrated ... really was angry ...
what really made me frustrated is that suse and fedora ( i also have them installed ( hey , i have alot of disk space ) and even though a barelly touch them and update them ( i rarelly use them !! ) they made my printer work perfectly . gentoo was driving me crazy )
now , this was frustrating me so much , because i love gentoo !! IT REALLY IS A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE
after 5 years of using linux as main OS , gentoo was the first distro to be my main OS more than 6 months. and it still is , after 4 years.
i never though this would happen , i was always testing distros back then !
i do ocasionalty check other distros , but gentoo is always the main , its always the one.
there are some flaws with gentoo. it hurts me to see other distro's improve so much , and gentoo its always the same ( 80 % its good , but there are things that should change )
one thing that i would love to see implemented , its the Stable , Testing , Unstable system of debian.
i , myself , am more of a person of testing , want more or less recent stuff , but dont like to be always updating ( am willing to wait a few weeks )
the current is that stable is unusable old , and testing is really to much edge !
really , is any dev thinking about this ? could gentoo incorporate this ?
thanx for the great distro |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:26 pm Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
and look what a state that has made it |
Yes, just look. It's working quite well In My Humble Opinion. And in the opinion of all the devs who have improved Gentoo by using that method... |
| Jules Winnfield wrote: | | You go play the blind man, Me? My eyes are wide fuckin' open |
It's this argument again, this goes on and on and on... We have groups of people debating whether other groups of people can debate on whether other groups of people can make decisions. And no-one can decide... Gentoo is in the big time now and cracks are appearing and no amount of other groups being created is going to change the fundamental fact that Gentoo needs a heirachy because it's marxist socialism structure which works so well on paper doesn't work in practise |
Did you read the above post by quag7? i think he summarized it very nicely - Gentoo != AnyOtherDistro. It is what it is and Debian it is not.
We don't need all those rules. Our current way of doing it works and the devs involved like having that flexibility. If they didn't, they would go and develop for Debian...
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ciaranm
Retired Dev
Joined: 19 Jul 2003
Posts: 1719
Location: In Hiding
|
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | Syntaxis,
This is where you are getting confused. As far as I know there is NO list of qualifications to be followed. The various arches just decide for themselves one day "I think we are ready". And so they are. |
That's not actually true.
Basically, for an arch to be considered official, all of the following have to be true:
* The arch team have to say "we want to be official".
* The official release guidelines have to be followed for that arch. This sometimes means changing the release guidelines...
* Infra have to approve mirror space for it. This has always been fine so long as the arch team doesn't leave things to the last minute.
* Releng have to approve it. This has always been a formality so far.
A while ago on -core (and council?), it was also proposed that the arch had to have a releng dev box available. I seem to remember this being agreed upon but never really written down.
There's also the security thing. The steps to being officially supported for security are outlined in the security policy. As far as I can tell, being security supported isn't a hard requirement for being release supported... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cokey
Advocate
Joined: 23 Apr 2004
Posts: 3355
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:01 am Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| curtis119 wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | cokehabit wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
and look what a state that has made it |
Yes, just look. It's working quite well In My Humble Opinion. And in the opinion of all the devs who have improved Gentoo by using that method... |
| Jules Winnfield wrote: | | You go play the blind man, Me? My eyes are wide fuckin' open |
It's this argument again, this goes on and on and on... We have groups of people debating whether other groups of people can debate on whether other groups of people can make decisions. And no-one can decide... Gentoo is in the big time now and cracks are appearing and no amount of other groups being created is going to change the fundamental fact that Gentoo needs a heirachy because it's marxist socialism structure which works so well on paper doesn't work in practise |
Did you read the above post by quag7? i think he summarized it very nicely - Gentoo != AnyOtherDistro. It is what it is and Debian it is not.
We don't need all those rules. Our current way of doing it works and the devs involved like having that flexibility. If they didn't, they would go and develop for Debian... |
i didn't read his post because he posted it at the same time as i posted mine.
I'm not saying we need a dictator, i'm saying we need people to stop being political and all these projects to make it look less political are probably having the reverse effect. When decisions need to be made they are made later than they need to be and like it or not rules are needed, structure is needed. Gentoo has grown past a hobbyist's distro.
_________________
https://otw20.com/ OTW20 The new place for off the wall chat |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Syntaxis
Guru
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 511
Location: London, UK
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 2:02 am Post subject: Re: Original Poster Responds.... |
|
|
| Syntaxis wrote: | | If Debian can be bothered to publicly document its processes to that level of detail, why not Gentoo? |
Just to clarify: this wasn't intended as a flame; I simply think that distros should strive to learn from each other. Lol - and with Debian and Gentoo, it cuts both ways, of course: 
| Gentoo UK 2006 Conference speakers page wrote: | | And, just because it always gets a cheer, Andrew will conclude with some of the highlights of his "What Debian can learn from the successes of Gentoo Linux" talk, but with a twist: "what Gentoo needs to do to not get caught by the traps that caught Debian as they scaled up." |
| curtis119 wrote: | | Because Gentoo is much more informal about things than Debian is. We pretty much let our devs do what they want most of the time (within reason of course). We try to do things informally by discussing them at the time and reaching some sort of consensus. |
In fairness, this pretty much describes the prevailing Debian philosophy as well. Even the Policy Manual merely codifies existing practice. For instance, to quote the Policy maintainer/Project Secretary:
| Manoj Srivastava wrote: | I think rather than trying to decree a policy, and over engineer an optional action for an init script meant mostly for user consumption, we should let the developers come up with whatever works best for them. Heck, even the LSB says nothing more about the status action (apart from specifying some exit codes).
At this point, there are no existing standards or practices for it to warrant a more explicit policy; once we figure out, in practice, what would work best, we can _then_ try making policy, IMHO. |
In my limited experience, the laying down of new rules by the Powers That Be (people with official positions, or anyone otherwise influential enough to push things through) within the Debian Project is generally spurred by crises of one kind or another, during which the developer body will be more likely to acknowledge that change is needed and so be more willing to tolerate restrictions on what they can and cannot do. The release criteria are a case in point; they were codified when it became overwhelmingly obvious that the Debian release process was in need of urgent repair and that releases were often delayed due to various ports not being ready at the same time as x86.
[As an aside: Biella Coleman wrote an interesting thesis entitled "Three Ethical Moments in Debian: the Making of an (Ethical) Hacker", which, among other things, covers the (ultimately beneficial, in her opinion) role of crises within Debian in some detail. I recommend you read it, it's very interesting. ]
| ciaranm wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | | The various arches just decide for themselves one day "I think we are ready". And so they are. |
That's not actually true. |
Yay! Thanks a bundle for the info. Exactly what I was looking for.
_________________
The Debian User Forums - help them grow! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
curtis119
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 2160
Location: Toledo, Ohio,USA, North America, Earth, SOL System, Milky Way, The Universe, The Cosmos, and Beyond.
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 2:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ciaranm wrote: | | curtis119 wrote: | Syntaxis,
This is where you are getting confused. As far as I know there is NO list of qualifications to be followed. The various arches just decide for themselves one day "I think we are ready". And so they are. |
That's not actually true.
Basically, for an arch to be considered official, all of the following have to be true:
* The arch team have to say "we want to be official".
* The official release guidelines have to be followed for that arch. This sometimes means changing the release guidelines...
* Infra have to approve mirror space for it. This has always been fine so long as the arch team doesn't leave things to the last minute.
* Releng have to approve it. This has always been a formality so far.
A while ago on -core (and council?), it was also proposed that the arch had to have a releng dev box available. I seem to remember this being agreed upon but never really written down.
There's also the security thing. The steps to being officially supported for security are outlined in the security policy. As far as I can tell, being security supported isn't a hard requirement for being release supported... |
That pretty much sums up what I said "everybody involved discusses it and reaches a consensus". Doesn't always mean the consensus is going to agree with the initial proposal though.
_________________
Gentoo: it's like wiping your ass with silk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
enderandrew
l33t
Joined: 25 Oct 2005
Posts: 731
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 3:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
Here is the thing. When the above poster mentions a 1.3% failure rate, that isn't exactly total failure. Those packages might compile just fine with an adjustment to make.conf - And I'm quite sure that when other distros are putting together their packages, that they have to adjust how different packages are compiled. When we make ebuilds, we filter certain flags because different packages respond differently to different flags.
One version of a package might be fine with flags that the earlier version isn't.
It is damn near impossible to catch all of these things. Gentoo puts this power in the end users hands to make these decisions, and in the end all people do is bitch that the developers should be making these decisions for you. If that's what you want, then jump ship to a binary distro.
_________________
Nihilism makes me smile. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Enverex
Guru
Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 501
Location: Worcester, UK
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I agree with the original poster on so many levels. I like what Gentoo tries to be but sometimes it really just pisses me off, as does the way some things are done. Patches taking YEARS to get into portage, things breaking quite often (normally a library or something down in the tree so it causes as many problems as possible) or especially things that need patching but aren't. Take the new autoconf-2.6 that breaks samba (which then breaks lots of other programs that need it). Rather than the patch just being put into portage, a long bug is started about it, the patch is posted and it will probably sit there for 3 months or so before being put in rather than it being implemented straight away and taking considerably less time of the same Dev anyway. It just doesn't make sense. If the patch has a high probability of breaking everything else then I see the need for testing, but if it's a simple fix to something very important then why? Lots of things fail to compile on my machine at the moment and there are fixes for (most of) them on B.G.O. and MOST of them have also been sat there for months and months. That's what sucks and I think it's the same complaint the original poster was making. There's just too much of a lag time. Sure, it's maintained by people for free, but now those people have responsibilites and people dependant on them so they can't just potter about and say "... meh, I'll go it next year". |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dendenners
n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2003
Posts: 28
Location: Inside a shirt
|
| Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 11:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
The main problem with the original post is the tone. Whats the point in being rude and agressive in a post to a forum whose members are volunteers and enthusiasts? Those swear words are entirely gratitutious and reflect badly on the poster. Why did he have to say he was 'f***ing done' - would it not have conveyed as much meaning to just say 'I'm done'?
Also, what's all that shouting about that anti-virus package being NOT DOWNLOADABLE? Readers of the post would have understood if we had been told that the package was not downloadable as well, and the poster would not have come across as someone in need of an anger-management course.
Perhaps I'm over-sensitive to insensitivity in other people's posts, but the real strength of gentoo is that posts in general are corteous, and are dealt with in a corteous fashion by others. I'm sure that many people leave gentoo (just as many people start using it). The majority who do so will do it quietly. Perhaps some will post a message listing reasons why they are leaving - and that is useful.
However, the gentoo community is better off without those who are unable to see that phrases like
| Quote: | And I'm sick of it. Gentoo simply takes too much goddamn research for even a technical (but non-Gentoo/Linux-guru) user to deal with, too often.
|
and
| Quote: | | As I type this -- f*** it. I'm done with Gentoo. I'll take the time, but I'm done. I've wasted too much time fixing my f***ing OS instead of USING it, with too many dropped-plates and snarky snide "well, it's user error -- we posted a build message, you stupid newbie" by too many half-committed, Asperger's-Syndrome social-skill-missing package maintainers. |
are actually offensive to those who spend their free time working on the distro. That sort of tripe only reflects on the poster, not the distro. I for one sincerely hope that gentoo haemorrhages as many of these angry people as possible - it can only be an improvement for the community - and the community is everything. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Gentoo Chat
