Some thoughts on Gentoo development

Locarius

I've been a Gentoo user for over a year and a half now, and for the most part I am happy with this distro.

Gentoo Strengths:
-package management (the reason I chose gentoo)
-package availability
-performance oriented
-choice
-community, helpfulness

I am very happy with the work that the devs do to keep things working smoothly. But lately I've felt that there hasn't been anything released that makes me think "Wow, Gentoo is really pushing the envelope for Linux cause". I guess what I am asking is, what has the Gentoo devs/community done that the other distros might look at and say "the Gentoo devs/community really made something cool... lets use it in our distro".

I see some cool things being worked on, like the initng stuff, jackass, etc. but I wonder things like portage being coded in C, or other portage specific 'fine-tuning'. Or refining package searching on the website (should I have to go to page 8 to find the gnome meta-package if I search for 'gnome' ?) Is gentoo not attracting enough developers to its cause? Distros like Ubuntu seem to have all kinds of people willing to help out.

Dont flame me.... its just something I've been wondering about.

hammy · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:

My take on the situation is that Gentoo is no longer a fad, like Ubuntu is at the moment. I remember a few years back when Gentoo was hugely popular and growing like crazy. It got lots of new users and developers, some of which stayed and many of which left. That's alright, and normal. Once you begin to reach the level Gentoo is at now, there is only so much catch-up left to do (which feels like innovation at first). I believe that since Ubuntu is new, people willing to help out will flock to it, settle in, improve it until it's very solid, and then find something else to spark their interest. The most stable developers and users will stick around and continue to keep Gentoo solid, but the flash in the pan folks will continue to jump ship to the next big thing.

That being said, the issues you bring up about Portage have been on my mind as well. I think it's god-awfully slow, and ought to be re-done. I heard from someone in IRC that a gentoo dev offered to program portage in C, but drobbins refused. Now that he has long since retired as lead, I think that project should be started! Not necessarily C, but some sort of lower level language. I am not a programmer, but I know that C can be made more efficient than Python (though not as easily).

The website has its share of flaws too, but I'm not sure how to fix it. It should definitely include a link to the Gentoo Wiki, my first place for information after the forums.
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aidy · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 915

That, my dear, is how free software software works!

mikecore · Guru Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 342 Location: Toledo, Ohio

I have been using Gentoo for awhile now and have installed it on 4 systems at home over that time. I have notice as of late portage has become a real pain in the ###. I have a laptop with everything running great so I haven't updated in about 4 months and I felt I should so I did and guess what my box is broke. Now my wireless doesn't start-up like it should and I can't run gdeskcal cuase of some problem or other. It appears the devs have changed the location and configuration on some files causing my problems. So I figured maybe I need to undapte my whole system (system + world) and I tried and yup update world failed with a broken "pyopengl" package. Im working on this now

Next I am doing a fresh install 2005.1 on my destop cause I lost a HD the other day and
during the "emerge --emtpytree system" again a python package fails

I have been looking on the forums and have noticed alots of packages problems during install. and that never seemed to happen during install before about a year ago.

The first poster stated he wanted more cutting edge well I would like cutting edge too but without screwing up what you have already got right in the first place.

This just my oppion -- Gentoo is the best Distro I have run or tried. but lately things have been going in a 100 different directions with major changes in scripts,configs, and the gentoo handbook and im sure other stuff. My point is, It seems like to me the quality has dropped off. I hope things change around soon cause I love Gentoo.

Q-collective · Advocate Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 2076

Yeah, portage could be rewritten in C, there was an efford for it but it died some time ago afaik.

Notice:
OMFGBBQ!!!!!!1111111 this is my 666th post, we are doomed!!

*ahum*

Locarius · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:10 pm Post subject:

I agree with mikecore.... I've had emerge --world b0rk my system a few times too. Now I only update the apps I use via cron, not the system base.

zbindere · Guru Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 356 Location: Switzerland

sometimes I like, when something does not work.
then I learn something new.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20555

loki99 · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:25 am Post subject:

Sven Vermeulen · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:27 am Post subject:

Gentoo still keeps improving a lot, but mostly on Gentoo-specific aspects. Our strengths are in the tools we build to aide the installation and maintenance of Gentoo. You wonder what Gentoo does that other distributions should take as a major improvement?

The Portage team is hard at work getting the next release up and running. It'll include a lot of stuff people have been asking for for a long time (like having an overview of all the messages that came up during the building) and stuff you haven't been asking for but will nevertheless adore

The Embedded project is finishing off the details for GNAP, a very nice way of having Gentoo installed on embedded systems or smaller environments.

The Apache project has improved their configuration, making it more modular and easier to use. Apache on Gentoo now scales better in larger environments and has far more out-of-the-box features on Gentoo than on other distributions (documentation, support and tools-wise). And also think about the PHP4/5 support.

Gentoo's baselayout team has improved networking support (including for wireless environments) and is still working on making this even more flexible. Especially for laptop-users, who can have several configurations in one central location.

Or what about support for Virtual Private Servers? I mean, how many distributions support this officially? Most distributions require you to go to unofficial repositories or projects.

The Gentoo Documentation Team keeps on adding new guides and improving existing ones. We have documents on debugging for those who want to learn more about the internals of Linux, or guides on installing a nice laptop with powermanagement for those who want to tweak their system to the best.

What are you actually looking for in a distribution? Not specific hardware support, because we use Linux and what Linux supports, we support. Not software availability, because Portage has several thousand software titles it supports. Most people don't even resort to unofficial trees.

plbe · l33t Joined: 01 May 2004 Posts: 661

Well I'm looking for reverse deps in portage.......and dep clean doesn't cut it sadly

St. Joe · Apprentice Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 242 Location: USA

mikecore · Guru Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 342 Location: Toledo, Ohio

Damn it! I have been trying to update my system now for two days and every time I update a package it breaks something you guys have changed so much shit now I have to freakin learn every damn thing over again what the hell did you do to the network setting configs cause now I can't even get a damn IP on my wlan0 or eht0! not to mention gdeskcal is still missed up. all my problems are module problems. It can't find dhcpcd for the net and it can't find gtk module for gdeskcal. And BTW for the poster that said I have to be careful updating my config files I am very careful!
(the only module I use is ndiswrapper for my wlan0 and its loaded) everything else is builtin.

I just got done doing a fresh install on my deskop also from a stage1 and I had to fix/work around three packages during "emerge --emptytree system" <--- thats BS That used to never happen. I followed the latest handbook and choose ext3 for root files system and after the reboot it says it couldn't mount root cause there is a bad superblock which is bullshit cause I just installed suse with out a problem not the mention I have two harddrives and tried both with a fresh install and the same error came back for both!

I understand the devs are giving there free time to develope gentoo for every one. (and I really do appreciate it!)
But things have just been way to unstable lately you guys need to slow down, and not bring change on so damn fast