What do you NOT like about Gentoo?

d2_racing · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:01 am Post subject:

In fact not, why should I crack my head to install a custom Gentoo box from A to Z, with the emerge -e system, changing the cflags,Use and after that I install a generic kernel like the one we see from Ubuntu or Debian or what ever you want. They are good, but they boot on every single computer on earth.

So I want to built a Gentoo box, so I don't want to have 200 drivers available inside the initrd for my lan card...because I know that I have a e1000 module for exemple and I want to have a fully Gentoo box with all the minimum :

tylerwylie · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:24 am Post subject:

Yes, for you. That is your choice, What if someone else wants the choice to build it another way? I'd love there to be more choice with how you build your Gentoo install. You're not talking about choice, you're talking about oppression.

tylerwylie · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:27 am Post subject:

Actually let me use your words, but simplified.

"The Gentoo way is my way, which is the right choice, the Gentoo way isn't anyone else's way, it's my way."

You can't say that and this:

"Gentoo is about choice"

While meaning the same thing.

Sorry it doesn't work that way.

SirGrant · n00b Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 27

yeah +1 for firefox 3 not being stable. I mean I just compiled openoffice 3 which was considered stable after what? 5 days about. Firefox 3 has been out for months and we are still using firefox 2. That is just my one issue.

P.S. yes I know I can unmask it but I don't feel like I should have to. Also yes I understand there is only so much time for gentoo developers but it's just kinda like firefox 3 is a killer app not one of those fringe apps where if there is an upgrade no one notices except a few people.

tylerwylie · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:54 pm Post subject:

verticalrock · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject:

I will start by saying that I have been a devoted Gentoo user for about 4 years and that I have been using Linux since kernel version 1 (aaahh yes, good ole Slackware and Yggdrasil). However there are places where Gentoo can improve, IMHO:

1) Bugs
Early in my experience with Gentoo I broke my system a lot but most of that was my own damn fault. That was part of the learning curve and the fact that I like being on the bleeding edge (aka ~arch). But eventually things stabilized out and seemed to run smoothly. When new software showed up in portage, I took my time, was careful and had no real issues. And if a bug showed up, it was fixed in a very speedy manner. Quite frankly it surprised me just how quickly bugs got fixed for an all volunteer distro. Unfortunately of late, it seems that there are several bugzilla issues I am keeping on my radar that are still open or not fixed. What strikes me as odd is that in some of the bugzilla reports there is a patch that has been created and yet it hasn't gotten into portage yet. Sure, I could take that patch out and apply it myself, but that's one of the reasons I use Gentoo as opposed to LFS. Now this issue may be related to the next issue of:

2) In-fighting in the community
Now I am not a proponent of one side's view or the other, but it seems to me as a distant observer that the community has become very polarized and fractured since drobbins left Gentoo, came back and then left again. It seems that people have become very extreme in their views of Gentoo going in this direction or that and refusing to play nice with anyone who disagrees with them. It is very unfortunate because I truly believe that this is the best damn distro out there and it would be a damn shame if it falls apart because of egos or whatever are the driving factors behind these arguments. It is distracting from the business of doing what Gentoo does best: making this distro the most cutting/bleeding edge flavour of Linux and giving the user the power to do whatever they want with it. Unfortunately this issue leads to the next one of:

3) Forums that have degraded in quality
One of the first reasons I chose to use Gentoo was that while searching out issues on the Internet with the other distros I have run, 9 times out of 10 it would seem that I would run across a Gentoo Forum posting with not only the same or similar issue but also a solution. And generally the posting would be weeks if not months before I had encountered the issue in another distro. So I started using Gentoo and was thrilled at the plethora of information in the forums and have rarely had to post questions because without fail, someone had the same issue or question and almost always had a solution. As I mentioned I run ~arch, so I expect some pain, but some of the issues I have experienced of late baffle me in the fact when I do a search of the forums, I find it hard to believe I am the first person to stumble on the issue. The final issue is more of a technical one regarding the forums of:

4) Complete crap search function in Forums
I know it's probably not easy to code but if I am looking for postings on 2.6.27, it drops the periods and I get a search for "2 6 27" and gentoo-sources becomes "gentoosources". I understand it takes time but we really need to bring the search capability of the forums into the 21st century.

Anyhoo, I hope that these are taken as constructive criticism rather than just a rant. I really believe Gentoo to be the best distro out there and I want it to continue going strong because I really don't want to have to use Ubuntu.

-c

Hypnos · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:19 pm Post subject:

verticalrock,

I think issues #1 and #3 can be explained by the exponentiating size of the Portage tree with a non-exponentiating developer and user base.

(Does anybody have any actual data for Portage size and developer participation over time?)

My guess is that eventually developers are going to have their own git repos for packages they care about and we'll be adding different repos for system, Xorg, GNOME, etc. No more Portage+overlays.
_________________
Personal overlay | Simple backup scheme

verticalrock · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject:

Hypnos,

There is definitely some truth in your points as the Portage tree is continually growing and the number of developers and users aren't growing at nearly the same pace. However, with regards to a least two of the bugs I am tracking they are to core packages (util-linux and portage) and one would think fixing those would take priority over more obscure packages. The same goes for the forums. And yes, I should probably (and will try to) step up more often when I come across issues and get the discussion ball rolling to try to get issues solved as well.

However, I still think that, as a community, we need to rally around the flag, if you will, and refocus on the real prize of keeping Gentoo moving forward and not get bogged down with petty issues.

-c

audiodef · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject:

Excellent post, verticalrock. I posted a couple of bugs and it seems like they just sit there. I've noticed the in-fighting (most recently in this very thread, with people picking on each other. Posts that would earn a warning from me if I were a mod. Srsly. We aren't here for that). And the forum search function - well, I'm a relative late-comer and the search function here has been crap since I joined. I never use it, instead using Google with the site: keyword to search these forums.

But I am hopeful things will improve. While I went from having Gentoo on 3 computers to 1 laptop (on which it still works great), I will still participate in these forums and try to do more to answer the questions of those seeking help with Gentoo. I'm not a Great Hacker, but I like to do what I can. Gentoo is indeed a very cool distro.

Inside · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2002 Posts: 39 Location: Afro-Eurasia

What I really don't like about gentoo is waiting for some big package to compile only to get a message like 'neigther useflag xyz nor zyx enabled recompile with either one'. What about simplifying the useflags a bit more? With useflags like kde-desktop, gnome-dektop, console-only and so on. Each enabling a set of flags common for these packages and a desktop system.

tanderson · Retired Dev Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 193

audiodef · Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:40 pm Post subject:

Hypnos · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 1:25 am Post subject:

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

Aquiles · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:19 am Post subject:

What I don't like about Gentoo is those packages with many versions available yet all of them masked. For instance, boinc (seven versions out there, yet not a single one not masked).
_________________
Aquiles

Hypnos · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:26 am Post subject:

audiodef · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject:

I'll probably take some flack for this, but I'm not trying to judge or pick on anyone. Plus, I know this is ~arch....

I don't think the decision to put KDE4 - even 4.1.2 into ~arch was smart (srsly, no offence). KDE 4 is so broken and wonky it's not even funny - and it's not even worth being on the "bleeding edge". I've gone through some weird shit with it on 2 different machines and I've decided I will never use KDE 4 until I see and hear about it being as functional and stable as KDE 3.5.9 is.

*end of rant*

_________________
decibel Linux: https://decibellinux.org
Github: https://github.com/Gentoo-Music-and-Audio-Technology
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibellinux
Discord: https://discord.gg/73XV24dNPN

McLink · Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:10 pm Post subject:

Yamakuzure · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:41 am Post subject:

...there isn't anything I don't like about Gentoo at all.

Compiling is needing time, of course, but what the heck that's why I've chosen Gentoo in the first place. So why complain?
Searching packages might need some time, I would not know as "eix" is some kind of standard for me.
Okay, okay, USE-Flags should be explained better, using "ufed" eases their use but doesn't deliver additional explanations, so I finally found something to complain about...
Ah, well, I often thought "Why isn't this/that package not marked stable yet?", too, but found most often that it isn't with good reasons. Mind, my "package.keywords" has 275 lines...

If I seached long and hard enough I certainly would find issues to complain about. And two or three months ago I would have done so. But that changed rapidly after I started work at my current company:

Except 2 machines everything here runs linux/unix, you'll only be able to find MS Windows within virtual machines for testing purposes, and on FileNet-SANS and our Domain Server/FileServer. But I am the only one using gentoo here, everyone elses loves their debian systems. I hate debian. It is unorganized, clumsy, chaotic and damn slow. I am far too used to the plethora of nice benefits I receive from using Gentoo. A workable Bash for instance. But try to work with apt-cache/apt-get and you'll see.
However, one of my tasks was to set up a new vmware-server machine (to be used via vmware-server-console by the whole company). Prior to that I had to backup a NTFS-Partition (It was a filesever with a domain controller beforehand) onto tape (DELL Power Vault). As it was not possible to convince Win2000 to speak to the tape, Knoppix didn't even have an adaptec kernel module, slackware is out of question and debian was a no go, I inserted a minimal gentoo boot disc, installed a very basic gentoo an tar'ed the whole partition onto the tape with an unpreceeded ease. *yes*!
As you all know you have to compile a kernel yourself. As I knew I would have to install debian later, I didn't want to fiddle with the .config myself and used (for the first and only time in my life) GenKernel. GernKernel activates everything that can't be compiled as a module, and compiles everything else as a module. So it needs more time to finish than a carefully configured custom kernel. In fact on this AMD64-Gentoo system it took 37 Minutes.
I am telling you this because of the reason I *love* Source-Distros. To get VMWare-Modules to compile, I created a custom kernel on debian later. It *was* manually configured, but I only threw out modules and selections I was absolutely sure are not needed.

...Compilation took 78 Minutes.

...On the very same machine...

...just because binary packages are all optimized for x86 thus working everywhere...

If you ever doubt again a source distro compiling everything onto your hardware, or ever doubt that -march=whatever does anything beneficial for you, read that post again.

Just my 2 (euro)cents
_________________
Important German:

"Aha" - German reaction to pretend that you are really interested while giving no f*ck.
"Tja" - German reaction to the apocalypse, nuclear war, an alien invasion or no bread in the house.

dattaway · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:24 am Post subject:

What I don't like about Gentoo is the lack of a ready made bootable installer image on a USB key. Cdroms are going the way of the floppy. Sometimes I find myself in a location with just net access, a USB port, and a USB key to boot from. If the mirrors had an image ready, it would be satisfying and quick like a soft drink out of a vending machine.

There's one other thing I don't like about Gentoo. No Gentoo Magazine. I'm at work 70 hours a week and often don't have access to a computer. But I like to read. Having a dead tree version of hard core Gentoo propaganda would be great. I've seen other Linux magazines dry up over the years, so I don't know if this dream can ever happen. I know it takes a lot of work and money to publish.

tanderson · Retired Dev Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 193

Stupendoussteve · n00b Joined: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 72 Location: US West

Lack of most any binaries. I don't like waiting for have a basic system up. I personally like to install xorg and gnome, most things I would like from a binary and then go about rebuilding them and customizing. I understand this is not the "Gentoo way" but it would be nice if at least the packages cd existed again for major arches. It is nice to be able to use the system for more than the console while building things.

Lack of a pxeinstall image. It would be nice if there was a basic system that could be brought up with pxe, or even pxe with nfs if required, and then install from there. Many other distros provide a netboot environment to put on a tftp server, and I have had to install Gentoo from within the netboot Debian-installer multiple times. I know it is possible to configure this with Gentoo, and there are guides to do so, but it would be nice to just download and extract a tar.gz that gets you the same thing.

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 815

drescherjm · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject:

audiodef · Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:15 am Post subject:

OMFG! Hours and hours compiling OpenOffice (downgrading from the buggy 3.0 version) and then it tells me it can't complete due to file collisions. Unmerged, figuring that'd solve the problem and ran it again, but NO. Collisions. Just deleted the effin' /usr/lib/openoffice dir.

Really need to get on the ball, folks, so that users are warned BEFOREHAND whether something WILL fail.

Really hate that about Portravage.
_________________
decibel Linux: https://decibellinux.org
Github: https://github.com/Gentoo-Music-and-Audio-Technology
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibellinux
Discord: https://discord.gg/73XV24dNPN