Peter Stuge wrote: > Michael Orlitzky wrote: >> I just get annoyed with the "don't use Gentoo unless you like your >> stuff broken" attitude. > Don't confuse stuff changing with stuff breaking - they are very > different things. > > In Gentoo stuff changes every single day. I heard that gentoo-x86 > gets some number of commits per hour, or was it per minute.. > > Stuff generally doesn't change for changes sake, but because the > change is an overall improvement to Gentoo. Gentoo being source > based is also a big part of why there are so many and frequent > changes. > > This means that anyone who wants to use Gentoo and have a system > which reliably does what they want it to do *need to pay attention*. > > They need to pay attention to what happens upstream, and they need to > pay attention to what happens in Gentoo. Not by monitoring every > mailing list, but by monitoring what portage will do when they use > it, and by being sure that this is what they desire. USE flags are a > huge part of this. Guessing at what any USE flag means is no good, so > yes, sometimes it is needed to actually look at the ebuild to learn > what will happen. Personally I find ebuilds to be amazing as > documentation, because they are also the actual code. > > I've built some Gentoo systems tailored to specific needs which work > great but which are not getting updated, because the sysadmins who > take care of those systems since they were deployed aren't > comfortable and efficient with Gentoo. That's fine - Gentoo is > clearly not a system for everyone. > > But it *is* a fantastic system for those who are aware that a finely > tuned machine requires good care, and who are able and willing to > take such care, by being active in creation of their systems. It is > fantastic because it is so easy for Gentoo to change for the better, > which happens constantly. > > I think USE=-server is a great way to change the ebuild for the > better. I don't care at all about a news item. They are generally > only annoying me. :) > > > //Peter > >
+1 As a regular desktop user, I know to look before updating. If I don't understand something, I search the mailing list in the past week or so in case someone else has run into the issue, I search the forums but most importantly, I also read this mailing list. Generally changes are talked about here first. The others are my backups. If none of those answers my question, I don't update until I get a answer. If needed, I ask on the -user mailing list what something is for or what something means. Basically, it is up to me to educate myself about changes. It has always been like this, when you update, do -p or -a first. If you blindly update, you get to fix it because it is your own fault for the breakage. Zac, he has done one heck of a job with portage giving us information. We can see USE flag changes and everything else BEFORE emerge does anything. If a person doesn't do that, they are going to cause themselves trouble and they should only complain to themselves. Gentoo has never been a distro to hold a persons hand. If a person needs their hands held, they should have chosen another distro. Gentoo is not a hand holding distro. It's just a distro that has great docs for people to learn first, then update. This has been a users perspective. Back to my hole. ;-) Dale :-) :-) -- I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!
