[linux-elitists] Gentoo, linux users too can be racers

[James Sparenberg]

On Sunday 28 October 2007 21:22:46 Greg KH wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 28, 2007 at 08:46:32PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 27, 2007 at 02:17:26PM -0400, Brandon Edens wrote:
> > > > > Somehow I doubt you ever do dist-upgrades.  You probably reinstall
> > > > > your boxes from scratch every time you need a newer copy of
> > > > > firefox.
> > > >
> > > > Gentoo! (sorry couldn't resist.)
> > >
> > > Hey! I resent that.
> > >
> > > I'm a Gentoo user and my laptop here has been going strong since
> > > 2005-08-05. I've yet to boot up a CDROM and mash the "upgrade" button.
> >
> > Sorry, if you use Gentoo, we have to make fun of you. It's just the law.
> > We don't have to be rational, or have a good reason, we just do.
>
> Ok then, go ahead, make fun of me using Gentoo :)
>

The tease would be worse if you used Linspire or Xandros believe me.  *grin*  
however Marc's point about RH strikes a few cords for me.  

1.  The really excellent job most distros do of putting vital patches into the 
mix of established releases without breaking them (usually) never 
saying "wait till the next full release" 

2.  The insistance many distro's have on holding onto a number of older 
packages (especially at lib and core level) for 2 and 3 releases (theirs) 
despite them being updated upstream multiple times.

3.  RPM and deb both need a logical "OR" for dependencies.  (deb may have a 
crude form) The ability for me as a packager to say "depends on ImageMagick > 
XX or imagemagick > XX or Imagemagick > Xx would really make it easy to have 
one package for 3 variants.  In fact this is often the only thing keeping me 
from building a single package is the absence of either a logical or, or, 
standardized nameing.

4.  Forced removal of packages I want to keep.  Debian is the worst here. I 
install X that requires Y and Z ... later when I remove X it says that Y and 
Z are orphaned and need to be removed ... Ubuntu variant of Debian gets real 
insistant that I remove Y and Z.  I want to keep them so I have to remove 
them.... and then re-install them Once I do debian says "Ok they aren't part 
of a dependency chain they are ok.  *sigh*

5. Forced dependencies.  Were there is no real dependency (like a lib) but 
instead it's "Well people who like X also want Y and Z.) Yes I want a text 
editor and no I don't want a full office suite.  Why can't I install a word 
processor without a full office suite. 

Ok.. rant off ... I feel better back to my hole in the wall.  I really need to 
make my next box LFS again

James