Re: Are we losing users to Gentoo?

[Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo <jsogo@debian.org>]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 02:04:52PM -0800, Jon Kent wrote:
> 
> --- Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo <jsogo@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> >   Could you run X 4.2 in, say, s390 that date? FYI,
> > X is supported in 11
> >   archs in Debian, a lot more than upstream
> > supports.
> 
> Ah, now this is an interesting point.  I understand
> that X4.2 got delayed as it was not ready across all
> platforms.  However i386 was ready but not relased
> until a far later date.  I sorta understand this, but
> i386 is by far the most used Linux platform, so
> delaying it 'cos is not running under PPC seems a bit
> mad to me IMHO.

  Perhaps i386 packages should have been released earlier. But the delay
  was not only due to porting X to other arches. A lot of test ad
  patching was done in the meanwhile too. Anyway, you could also
  download X prerelease packages from XStrike Force webpage
  (http://people.debian.org/~branden/)

> 
> > 
> >   And I want to make one question: where is the
> > improvement in
> >   performance when I need two or three days to
> > install a thing like
> >   GNOME or KDE? You'll need to use it some eons to
> > get some earn with
> >   that.
> >   If you want to compile things because that makes
> > fun to you, you can do.
> 
> Like I said b4 (pls read the previous email) I don't
> believe there is much of an improvement, its the fact
> that I have more control that appeals.

  You can also have it downloading the source package, changing whatever
  you want and recompiling. And perhaps, if you want, helping with tools
  like apt-src.

> 
> > /me, tired of Gentooers
> 
> I tempted to be rude back, but I won't.  Needless to
> say if you read the previous emails you'd see that I
> run Debian on server and have used it for years.

 I have been perhaps a bit rude, but I wasn't refering to you directly.
 The problem is that I have heard a lot of times things like "THIS IS
 3L33T" without any more explanation. Of course Debian can improve in
 some ways, but IMHO Gentoo has more problems that advantages. You can
 get almost 99% of what Gentoo offers you, and without some of its
 problems (I won't like to have to wait 10 or 20 minutes for installing
 a package if I'm in a hurry)

-- 
  Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo
     jsogo@debian.org