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8086
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Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 52
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 Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:05 am Post subject: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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I don't know what the situation is. Ignoring all the political and media drama plaguing Gentoo for quite some time now -- is there anything Technical wrong with the system? Are developers not doing their work or rather being slowed down/distracted by recent events? How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? Is Portage *that* bad?
*Or* is Gentoo as alive and kicking and technically excellent as always, and problems are only of a political/media/whatever-non-technical nature? |
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AllenJB
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Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:18 am Post subject: |
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The developers recently did a project checkup on the devel mailing list - see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/54032
Your best bet for this sort of information in general is to monitor the devel and project mailing lists, as well as individual projects themselves.
For example, releng are meeting tonight (UTC) to discuss 2007.1 and 2008.0 among other items.
My general impression is that most herds are understaffed for the amount of work on their plate, but that's pretty much always been (and probably always be) the case. I don't think there's anything seriously wrong on the technical side. |
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desultory
Bodhisattva
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Posts: 9410
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:27 am Post subject: |
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| 8086 wrote: | | I don't know what the situation is. Ignoring all the political and media drama plaguing Gentoo for quite some time now -- is there anything Technical wrong with the system? |
As with any software, if examined in sufficient detail there are problems which need to be solved, that process is active and ongoing.
| 8086 wrote: | | Are developers not doing their work or rather being slowed down/distracted by recent events? |
Some certainly are, to what extent this effects the project has not really been evaluated, in part because to do so could end up being counterproductive.
| 8086 wrote: | | How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? |
Largely due to the general effects of a vocal minority.
| 8086 wrote: | | Is Portage *that* bad? |
No.
| 8086 wrote: | | *Or* is Gentoo as alive and kicking and technically excellent as always, and problems are only of a political/media/whatever-non-technical nature? |
On the whole, that is the case. |
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eroyf
Retired Dev
Joined: 03 May 2004
Posts: 82
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:12 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| 8086 wrote: | | How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? |
I would guess that most users are switching to Paludis because they're tired of Portage's lack of features and lack of innovation. I'd guess that Portage is pretty good for most users, but the power users, which Gentoo has a lot of, will sooner or later switch to something more feature-rich. |
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spb
Retired Dev
Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2135
Location: Cambridge, UK
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:37 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| 8086 wrote: | | is there anything Technical wrong with the system? |
Yes, in as much as nothing really new has happened for a couple of years. Gentoo used to be one of the most technically interesting, distributions, doing new things and breaking new ground. Now it's pretty much stopped doing that, and others are overtaking it.
| Quote: | | Are developers not doing their work or rather being slowed down/distracted by recent events? |
They're slowed down by a vocal minority (useful phrase, that, isn't it?) of people in certain positions of power who are more interested in not upsetting anyone than they are in producing a good distribution.
| Quote: | | How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? Is Portage *that* bad? |
It's something new and interesting, which used to be what Gentoo was all about. Some people remember that time, and liked it.
| Quote: | | *Or* is Gentoo as alive and kicking and technically excellent as always, and problems are only of a political/media/whatever-non-technical nature? |
Gentoo is more or less exactly where it was two years ago, which is the problem. Everyone else has been going forwards in that time. |
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L4in
n00b
Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: |
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imo, Gentoo right now is like an old suit...
Devs just filling the holes, make repairs and such things...  |
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xerxian
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Joined: 16 May 2003
Posts: 38
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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If gentoo is going along fine, then why are at least half of the old gentoo users I know (including myself) running debian or ubuntu?
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mark_alec
Bodhisattva
Joined: 11 Sep 2004
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
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depontius
Advocate
Joined: 05 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| xerxian wrote: | | If gentoo is going along fine, then why are at least half of the old gentoo users I know (including myself) running debian or ubuntu? |
Not me, I'm still running Gentoo. When I packed up my daughter to go to college, I set her up with Ubuntu, but that's because I wanted her to have something she could maintain without dear old dad. (IMHO Gentoo should never be used without at least a semi-expert somewhere nearby, if only virtually over ssh.)
As for me, the current Gentoo troubles have induced me to at least look around. If forced to jump, at the moment it would probably be to Arch, but as far as I can tell, Arch doesn't give me the easy flexibility that USE flags do under portage.
Last time I jumped, it was when RedHat 9 came out, signifying that RedHat 8.1 wasn't, and RedHat had changed their entire release strategy. I cast about for some time, looking at Mandrake, Debian, etc. At some point I realized that I was using support as a criteria for something that's at least partially a hobby, and that's just plain wrong. After I reinserted fun into the criteria, I settled on Gentoo. As a side-effect, the rolling release methodology of Gentoo has generally made support easier. Arch shares the rolling release, but not the USE capabilities. I'll stick with Gentoo for the time being...
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AllenJB
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Joined: 02 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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| xerxian wrote: | | If gentoo is going along fine, then why are at least half of the old gentoo users I know (including myself) running debian or ubuntu? |
Because you happen to know more people who prefer Debian than Gentoo. People often run distros for a while before switching to something else and trying that. I ran a number of different distros before I eventually found Gentoo. |
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xerxian
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Joined: 16 May 2003
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Location: Wellington, New Zealand
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | Because you happen to know more people who prefer Debian than Gentoo. People often run distros for a while before switching to something else and trying that. I ran a number of different distros before I eventually found Gentoo. |
Most of these people have run gentoo since before 1.4, they would probably return to gentoo if they saw it as a decent distro without major problems with what I can only imagine is developer incompetence.
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"I'm just picturing a bunch of anime lovers with their macs talking about how awesome anime and steve jobs is." -- tylerwylie on japanology |
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AllenJB
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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| xerxian wrote: | | AllenJB wrote: | | Because you happen to know more people who prefer Debian than Gentoo. People often run distros for a while before switching to something else and trying that. I ran a number of different distros before I eventually found Gentoo. |
Most of these people have run gentoo since before 1.4, they would probably return to gentoo if they saw it as a decent distro without major problems with what I can only imagine is developer incompetence. |
You can only imagine? Well actually, you could read up on what's happening, educate yourself and make an informed decision for yourself, instead of random guessing. You could even, god forbid, step up and try to help out in a few areas.
If anything, this situation has, in my view, emphasized the attitude of most users where by they see a shelf support coming loose from the wall and they start complaining about it. They never bother to think that maybe they could get a screwdriver and tighten up the screws. |
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xerxian
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Joined: 16 May 2003
Posts: 38
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | If anything, this situation has, in my view, emphasized the attitude of most users where by they see a shelf support coming loose from the wall and they start complaining about it. They never bother to think that maybe they could get a screwdriver and tighten up the screws. |
They tried, its called paludis, and we all see how well that is treated by certain people associated with gentoo.
Its bureaucracy and arrogance, and the only way to solve that is a clean out.
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"I'm just picturing a bunch of anime lovers with their macs talking about how awesome anime and steve jobs is." -- tylerwylie on japanology |
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spb
Retired Dev
Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2135
Location: Cambridge, UK
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| L4in wrote: | imo, Gentoo right now is like an old suit...
Devs just filling the holes, make repairs and such things... |
Which is more or less how it is. Anyone who tries to do otherwise runs into a quagmire of manufactured bureaucracy produced by a minority to hold up anything they don't like. |
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L4in
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Joined: 21 Jul 2007
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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| AllenJB, to ask,demand,protest,vote and make criticism are also ways to fix things and it's pretty healthy to do such things in democracy. |
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AllenJB
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| L4in wrote: | | AllenJB, to ask,demand,protest,vote and make criticism are also ways to fix things and it's pretty healthy to do such things in democracy. |
But this isn't a democracy.
This is open source, where people volunteer to do something because it scratches an itch. If you have an itch, stop whining about it. Scratch it. |
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L4in
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Joined: 21 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| AllenJB wrote: | | L4in wrote: | | AllenJB, to ask,demand,protest,vote and make criticism are also ways to fix things and it's pretty healthy to do such things in democracy. |
But this isn't a democracy.
This is open source, where people volunteer to do something because it scratches an itch. If you have an itch, stop whining about it. Scratch it. |
I would say you stop whining about criticism (which as i said is a very good and legit "scratch") and answer with facts to prove for example that something changed from the time Robbins left..
Anything else is just... noise imo ^^
After all i don't ask to reinvent the wheel.
There were better days for gentoo... and no i wasn't scratching anything that time so volunteers are not the problem.
And btw... there is no way to join in a project where i have to fight for days and destroy my mentality trying to fix things from the inside.
I prefer to stay outside, fix things for my own or live with the itch waiting the day that someone will lead the way forward or find a better alternative and switch to it. |
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8086
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Joined: 12 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Criticism isn't scratching, it's just complaining about lack of scratching. L4in you seem to give developers less than what they're worth. Let's keep in mind that without them there would be no distribution, and they're doing US a favor, rather than the other way around. |
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Paapaa
l33t
Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 955
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| 8086 wrote: | How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? Is Portage *that* bad?
*Or* is Gentoo as alive and kicking and technically excellent as always, and problems are only of a political/media/whatever-non-technical nature? |
I don't think that is an OR situation. IMO Gentoo is alive and kicking AND Paludis is a great alternative to Portage. They are not mutually exclusive things as Gentoo is not 100% dependant on Portage.
(And yes Drobbins made things look worse than they are. He really wants to control Gentoo again. I don't think that should happen.)
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Paludis, the way packages are meant to be managed. |
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jcat
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Joined: 26 May 2006
Posts: 1337
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:53 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| spb wrote: | | 8086 wrote: | | is there anything Technical wrong with the system? |
Yes, in as much as nothing really new has happened for a couple of years. Gentoo used to be one of the most technically interesting, distributions, doing new things and breaking new ground. Now it's pretty much stopped doing that, and others are overtaking it.
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I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely interested. Examples?
Cheers,
jcat |
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jstead1
Guru
Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 427
Location: Oswego, NY where the snow is deep
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:32 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| eroyf wrote: | | 8086 wrote: | | How come so many people seem to be using Paludis? |
I would guess that most users are switching to Paludis because they're tired of Portage's lack of features and lack of innovation. I'd guess that Portage is pretty good for most users, but the power users, which Gentoo has a lot of, will sooner or later switch to something more feature-rich. |
Why would you guess that most users are switching to Paludis?
It's been a while since I checked, but there was a thread about Paludis and who has switched, and who has switched back to portage, and a significant number have switched back (39%). It's been my experience that if you see 30% or so back out of a commitment like that, there are considerable forces driving that. It is human nature to stick with something that you have invested yourself in, even if it is worse than what you came from. In addition, from what I understand, switching back may be non-trivial.
For me, there is just no compelling reason to switch. I have very few problems with updates through portage, and although you can argue about how slow it may be, there is really no reason to sit there and watch it work. So what's the point for the average user.
Now if it is a matter of portage cannot scale up, or cannot support advancement, that's another story, one for the developers to hash out. But unless, and until, gentoo switches package management, that is a moot point for users, because the distro is always limited by its official package management software.
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dhris
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Nov 2004
Posts: 90
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:21 am Post subject: |
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| Of course the political situation affects the technical side. If the project appears to be in disarray it's naturally going to keep new developers, etc, from wanting to join. Personally, I think that the vitriolic atmosphere that has periodically prevailed in some areas (like the development mailing list) is at least partially to blame for the fact that there is a staff shortage. Who wants to step into that environment? It sounds simplistic, but I think that just working on projecting a more friendly and cooperative atmosphere in public would go a long way to addressing some of the perceived problems. The present leadership is quite reasonable and perfectly capable of doing this (they could start by removing a few multiple offenders from the mailing list), but it seems that any time they want to take real action they need fire proof suits and full body armour. |
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Paapaa
l33t
Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 955
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:30 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| jstead1 wrote: | | eroyf wrote: | | I would guess that most users are switching to Paludis because they're tired of Portage's lack of features and lack of innovation. I'd guess that Portage is pretty good for most users, but the power users, which Gentoo has a lot of, will sooner or later switch to something more feature-rich. |
Why would you guess that most users are switching to Paludis? |
I don't think he meant that most users are switching to Paludis. I think he was talking about the most important reason why those who switched to Paludis did it.
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Paludis, the way packages are meant to be managed. |
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dleverton
Guru
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 517
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: Re: Technical problems in Gentoo land? |
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| jcat wrote: | | spb wrote: | Yes, in as much as nothing really new has happened for a couple of years. Gentoo used to be one of the most technically interesting, distributions, doing new things and breaking new ground. Now it's pretty much stopped doing that, and others are overtaking it.
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I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely interested. Examples? |
I don't know if any other distros do it better, but multilib support, for one thing. Gentoo's multilib hasn't progressed since 2005.0 (eselect-compiler was supposed to be the next step, but the less said about that the better....) We're still at the "install binaries for all 32-bit software except glibc and one or two others that make special arrangements in the ebuild" phase. |
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steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:32 am Post subject: |
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| dhris wrote: | | Of course the political situation affects the technical side. If the project appears to be in disarray it's naturally going to keep new developers, etc, from wanting to join. Personally, I think that the vitriolic atmosphere that has periodically prevailed in some areas (like the development mailing list) is at least partially to blame for the fact that there is a staff shortage. Who wants to step into that environment? |
Agreed.
| Quote: | | It sounds simplistic, but I think that just working on projecting a more friendly and cooperative atmosphere in public would go a long way to addressing some of the perceived problems. The present leadership is quite reasonable and perfectly capable of doing this (they could start by removing a few multiple offenders from the mailing list), but it seems that any time they want to take real action they need fire proof suits and full body armour. |
Yeah; it's a shame the proctors got killed off before they even had a chance to do anything. The consensus for that project was hashed out over many months on the dev m-l and these forums.
Oh BTW there's plenty of innovation in Gentoo; crossdev for instance is a work of genius, and the herds do sterling work in bringing new stuff to the tree (eg haskell is worked on in Gentoo by one of its core devs and an excellent Gentoo team.) The new #btrfs channel was set up in response to users from this very forum; it's not just Oracle either. The Head of Unix Operations for nvidia runs Gentoo/xfce on his personal machine, and Gentoo is used by many organisations, who simply employ professional admins rather than seek support from a commercial distro.
I've never had an issue with multilib and I'm on my second amd64 install. Maybe some of you guys could try contributing back to Gentoo instead of leeching the tree and pretending to care about Gentoo QA?
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