Re: Suggestions Invited
I was once a Gentoo fan for its emerge and quick releases, but I too got sick
of compiling everything (and re-compiling when I made config mistakes) so I
switched to Debian. I couldn't be happier. I have far fewer problems, far
less hassle and since I use "unstable" I have pretty much the latest
packages. Every once in a while I have to roll back to a previous version of
something for awhile, but for the most part, it's solid. Gentoo is great for
what it is; just realize what it is: a compiled-from-scratch distribution.
For most people, that means it's a weekend toy, not a daily system you can
depend on. Debian is all about being easy to get up and keep up.
Sean O'Dell
On Tuesday 21 September 2004 13:59, Robert Brinson wrote:
> Currently, I am a Gentoo Linux user. It is a great distribution for
> people who want fine control over their system. I enjoy being able to
> just emerge whatever_program. However, I am getting a little tired of
> having to compile every little obscure library for a point update. So, I
> guess you could say I'm in the market for a new distro.
>
> I have used Red Hat (not Fedora), Mandrake, and Gentoo. Of all of them,
> I enjoy the control I have with Gentoo. I guess I'm looking for a distro
> that will allow me to obtain the latest xorg or gnome or firefox without
> having to go through a three hour compile session. RPM is not suitable
> for this, as I know from experience. Red Hat and Mandrake are very picky
> about dependencies making an upgrade of gnome or kde nearly impossible.
> One ends up in the RPM equivalent of dll hell. apt-get seems well suited
> for my needs. That is why I am posting to this debian list. However,
> when I browsed the package repositories on debian.org, I was
> disappointed. The stable repository is woefully out of date. The latest
> unstable gnome is version 2.6, and xorg is not even listed. Is it
> possible to easily have a debian install with the latest gnome 2.8 and
> xorg 6.8.1? I did see a debian-based distro called ubuntu that has gnome
> 2.8 out of the box. However, their faq says that one should not mix
> mainstream debian debs with ubuntu debs. So, that distro would preclude
> me from taking advantage of all of the packages in the debian
> repository. So, does anyone have advice for this situation? Am I asking
> the impossible of the current state of debian?
>
> Thanks for any insight.
>
> Robert Brinson
> rbrinson@thebrinsons.net
>
> "The solution to any problem -- work, love, money, whatever -- is to go
> fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." –
> John Gierach
Reply to: