why Gentoo sucks, and why it will ultimately die

[Zork the Almighty]

Two words: maintenance and bloat. When I started using Gentoo a number of years ago, it was a small, lightweight distribution with a reputation for speed. Despite the fact that most software had to be compiled, you could build a very lean system simply by installing a handful of packages and tweaking the USE flags to leave other stuff out. It took 5 seconds to update the portage cache. Packages were frequently updated, but for the most part you could just install the new version overtop of the old one. My standard system consists of X, KDE, Mplayer, and a few other packages like ssh and gcc which every system should have.

Fast-forward to today, where the current fad seems to be "modular packages". Instead of 10 packages for KDE we have 200, and instead of 1 package for X we have 100, and something is updated every day. There are now so many possible configurations, depending on whether you last updated a day, a week, or a month ago, that it is pointless to try to test anything. The software is simply thrown onto the users, and whatever is broken is sorted out in the forums.

Add to that the developer's tendency to introduce deep structural changes to the system on a continuous basis. I don't mind that Gentoo in 2006 uses udev instead of devfs, and Xorg instead of the standard X11. Certainly we all have to make these changes. What I dislike is the fact that these types of changes are made every two or three months, and often before the new software is ready. Sometimes the "solution" is to install a bunch of packages from ~x86, weeks before they are made "stable". What does that say ?

The bottom line is that I go out of town for one month, and when I return I spend one or two full days updating and repairing my system. It's not just compile time - I may as well reinstall. In fact, if you don't update you will be forced to reinstall because your configuration will quickly become unsupported, or updating it will break it beyond all repair.

There are so many packages now that it becomes impossible to strip out bloat. When one piece of software requires 100 packages, someone in that list will always want to install Gnome or Ruby or GTK+ or some other unnecessary dependency. Bloat is also added whenever the underlying system is changed, because new dependencies are added and old ones are not removed. I know there are tools for detecting this, but I also know that they don't often work. I'm pretty sure that if I reinstalled Gentoo right now I could build a lean and modular system, but a year later it would be spaghetti again.

The bottom line is that Gentoo reflects the state of Linux as a whole. It's like a house where every part, from the foundation to the roof, is constantly being worked on or replaced. This is good for house design, but it's not a place where anybody can live. Most distributions cherry pick the best versions of software for a "release", and then actually test the software (in a "beta" version) to see if it works. This way the users get the benefits of a fairly modern house, with only periodic interuptions instead of continuous construction. I don't think anything in Gentoo ever even gets to beta level anymore. The distribution as a whole certainly doesn't. The only people who can seem to maintain the system are its developers, and trying to "use" Gentoo is the craziest thing I have ever seen a large group of people do.

I miss the simplicity and speed of the old Gentoo. The distribution is now 10 times more complex, but it doesn't seem to deliver any benefits to its users.

[heipei]

i have to agree with some things. thanks for your points, i think ill keep an eye open for you described
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[Archangel1]

[Gergan Penkov]

[Lechium]

[djdunn]

ive been using gentoo for years, never had to install soemthing ~x86 unless it had soemthing to do with videodrivers and using the newest stable kernel,

2 days to update? it took me less than 2 days to emerge -e world...
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“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.”

― Plato

[xanas3712]

Blah

[wellwhoopdedooo]

Everything dies.

[Ctrl+Alt+Del]

We need a dedicated subforum for "Gentoo sucks/I am Leaving Gentoo" and last but not least "I am back" Threads.

[Alice in W]

[antonlacon]

[numerodix]

Wow, a gentoo criticism post I actually agree with. You make a lot of good points and I don't think you're overstating them either. I haven't really thought of those things as problems so far, I guess I got so used to the gentoo way of doing things. But now, as Ubuntu Dapper has sailed up as a real option for me, I'm starting to reconsider gentoo for being so nitty gritty. I think it's a very useful project that will always be around for those who want it. It's also perfect for exotic platforms that don't have binary distros catering to them.

But for a run of the mill x86 desktop, which admittedly requires a lot of control (cause I'm a control freak ), it may just not be necessary anymore. Which is credit to gentoo for pushing the limits and showing the FOSS world what can be done, others have followed. Above all, "unusual things" are almost always much easier to do in gentoo, because someone has always tried it or tried something in that vein.

Another thing is that with all kinds of different configurations, I guess gentoo does a lot of bug fixing for upstream as well, I've always imagined this being the case anyway.
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[DeepBass909]

The modular setup of KDE and Xorg is exactly what gentoo is about. Instead of having to install all hardware drivers for Xorg, in the modular system you only install the drivers you need. The same goes for KDE, with the modular system you only install the packages you acually need/want.

And unstable ~x86 packages are only needed when you want some cutting edge software, alien (from portage overlays) or videodrivers, otherwise my server runs without ~x86-packages. My workstation on the otherhand has a lot of ~x86 packages because of KDE 3.5.3 and Xorg 7.0, but this was a deliberate choice by myself.

Your story about udev is also wrong. The change from devfs to udev wasn't an idea from gentoo, but from the kernel development team. It has been availeble in the kernel for about 1 year now, and just recently it was descided to drop devfs support from the 2.6 kernel. Again it was you own choice to change to a kernel without devfs support, no-one made you do it. And it's the same with everything else in gentoo, you don't need to upgrade, you want to upgrade. The consequence is that sometimes you have to do some "repair" work, but again it's because you wanted it to be upgraded.

I have to admin that past dependencies stay on your system, bloating it...

[toralf]

[Sachankara]

[opentaka]

hmm,

[gentoo_lan]

Most of what you said I disagree with...I hope you enjoy Ubuntu or whatever distribution you choose.

[geniux]

[Shadow Skill]

Modularity is only a problem when you end up actually needing 50 of the 100 packages to get relatively basic functionality out of an app or given set of apps other than that modularity is a very good thing.
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Ware wa mutekinari.
Wa ga kage waza ni kanau mono nashi.
Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.

"First there was nothing, so the lord gave us light. There was still nothing, but at least you could see it."

[dmpogo]

[coolsnowmen]

[tabanus]

As we say in business, criticism only helps to make you better. But, I'm having a hard time understanding some of your stuff.

[cosmic665]

Zork;

Grow up! If you don't like gentoo and you think it's too unstable, then shutup and go run debian. I'm sure fedora has fewer packages then gentoo as well.

[Zork the Almighty]

Thanks for all of your replies. For the record, I have been using Gentoo as my main operating system since the beginning of 2003. It was actually the first distro I tried to install (back in 2002), and I made it all the way to a working X11 before deciding it was insane. I liked the concept though. Then I tried Mandrake, Redhat, and Debian, but they all installed too much crap or it was impossible to get certain functionality, and I came back to Gentoo. There are, in my opinion, five reasons to use Gentoo:
1) it is usually possible to get something to work
2) you are very likely to find help in the forums (see 1)
3) you have quite a bit of control over what is installed
4) it doesn't do too many weird things to config files
5) you can get very modern software

If you're interested in learning Linux and you want to try lots of software, Gentoo is a great distro. In fact, it is probably the best distro for that purpose. I have, however, gradually become more and more busy with work and I don't have time to tinker with my Linux system anymore. I've also seen most of the software that's out there and decided what I like.

In the last three months I have updated my machine three times, and every time something seriously broke (ie: it took more than 15 minutes of my time). In one instance the device files in /dev which were previously tarred and restored were no longer tarred and restored after an update, which broke X11's video and mouse config. The new Nvidia drivers also had some sort of crazy problem. I was forced to update the system because my profile (from 2005) would not be supported any longer, meaning I would not be able to update at all and I would have to reinstall.

My criticisms of udev, modular KDE and Xorg, etc, are not meant to say Gentoo should not make those changes. But some sort of announcement or schedule is needed for major updates. The update to udev, for example, took me completely by surprise. You can't always tell when an update is a major update that has the potential to break your system. On more than one occasion I thought "I'll just update this minor thing before I go to bed" and then BOOM! I was up all night trying to make sure the system would boot up in the morning when my wife needed to use it. The fact is, every time I update the system I have to set aside time because of the potential for major hassles. For modular KDE, I didn't even bother. All that trouble for what, KDE 3.5 ? It would have been better to save that change for KDE 4.0, which is guaranteed to be a massive problem anyway.

The change to modular Xorg at least coincides with a major version number, and ultimately, it makes sense, but I can't help thinking it would be less trouble to reinstall. Unfortunately my processor is a little slow these days, and although I use tmpfs for compiling (best tip ever!) it still takes 12-18 hours to get everything set up. BTW, another good trick I find is to stick the portage tree on /var on a separate partition. It avoids fragmentation, but also too many partitions. You can delete distfiles and even most of the ebuilds to gain free space on /var if you ever need it.

So basically, my only real gripe with Gentoo is that I'm getting really tired of things breaking. I don't mind if things break for major updates, even if it's multiple things at once. But it's really annoying to have it happen every month or so, when you least expect it. Maybe my system has just lasted longer than usual (I last reinstalled in late 2004) and nobody else is experiencing these problems, but if that's the case then it is a serious issue (and one of the reasons why I hate Windows).

In a larger context, I think the whole "package management" system that Linux uses is broken. I would prefer a distro that had Desktop and Server base installs, and otherwise statically compiled apps with few dependencies (only big things, like Gnome or KDE). With i686 builds and prelinking the speed difference is gone, and although it's interesting to construct a system with no bloat, you can't maintain it for reasons I posted earlier. I think Linux should try as much as possible to copy Mac OS X (before Apple wrecks it). It's far from perfect (don't look under the hood), but its approach to installing applications is correct.

Otherwise, FreeBSD offers a good model. Gentoo is very close to FreeBSD in many ways, however the difference is that FreeBSD has releases, and the fundamentals of the system don't change outside of those. You can upgrade things and they basically don't break. On the Linux side, Slackware is often compared to BSD, and it is the distro I will probably try next (when version 11 is released). I've used it before to breathe life into an old notebook computer, and although I find their defaults too conservative (2.4 kernel !?) you do at least get a stable, no-nonsense system. My only concern is that it will quickly get stale, at which point I will have to reinstall Gentoo

After all of my ranting (is anyone still reading?) I'm not so sure Gentoo should change. It's useful as it is, which is an exercise in frustration while trying to stay on or near the bleeding edge. It's a very good distro for trying new software, and for learning about Linux as a whole. Most of the credit for the latter belongs to these forums, and to the people who take the time to post and write documentation. Thank you.

As for Gentoo:
1) We need some indication of when a change is major. Certainly 30 blocked ebuilds highlighted in red seems to get the point across, but sometimes it's not obvious.
2) We need to combine major updates, to minimize or at least schedule the inconvenience to users. The quarterly profiles were a good idea, but they are actually not frequent enough. I suggest changing the stable branch once a month (patch Tuesday!) with the exception of security updates. Nobody can claim that's not bleeding edge, but at the same time it should reduce the burden on package maintainers and provide some sort of protection for users against broken updates. The testing branch could be frozen for 5 days before the switchover to allow people to upgrade earlier (at a slightly higher risk). People who don't have time for problems could upgrade later in the cycle. You could schedule your upgrades according to how much risk you want to take (nifty!). Gentoo is a large distro with a widely varying userbase. It could work.
3) We need to speed up portage, and fix the meta-packaging. I know people are working on this, but it's important.

What do you people think of point number 2 ?

[runningwithscissors]