090812 Alan E. Davis wrote: > I'm a little reluctant to say this, but it's been a couple of months now > since I switched back to Gentoo, and I want to shout out my pleasure > that this system has been performing admirably well this time around, > in comparison with earlier installations. None of the earlier installations > were unacceptable, in fact, Gentoo remained my favorite. I moved to Ubuntu > because maintainance of the Gentoo boxes was much more time consuming.
Yes, that seems to be the usual reason users leave Gentoo: like owning a dog, you have to find time to maintain/exercise it. However, unlike a dog, you can catch up after a long absence: I've just finished updating the system in my stand-by box, which had hardly been touched since 0809, but everything's ok now. > I've watched Gentoo plummet in the popularity ratings, eg at distrowatch. It got a lot of attention from the neophiles c 2002 , but as with everything they soon moved on to the next latest fad. Gentoo is not for everyone: compare 'Financial Times', one of the World's best newspapers, but it takes 3 days to read 1 issue. > I've watched as the best documentation EVER on Gentoo wiki > as fallen off the edge of the world. Admin got neglected awhile, but my impression is that lessons were learned & the basic running of the distro is now well-managed. > Now, however, I have not had any such problem, or maybe I should say, > the one or two times I have it was easy to figure things out. > Is it because I'm more experienced, or perhaps more cautious? > I don't know, but I tend to think the distribution is more mature. If you insist on being at the cutting edge, sometimes you hurt your fingers. I haven't had a serious problem with Gentoo since installing it 2003 & again in my latest machine 2007 . Just last week, after Mozilla made sound the default setting for Xulrunner + Firefox, I entered a bug -- I don't want sound software in my machine -- & got a very prompt fix from the dev involved (thanks again). > And never a cranky whine, like on other lists, never any complaint. There was a silly troll last week, but everyone ignored it: yes, that's a sign of maturity. > Thank you to all the developers and all the list people > who have consistently given the highest and most professional level > of assistance to a rather clueless user. > This is typical, and always has been with Gentoo's community. The devs do need to get regular thanks for their unpaid work. -- ========================,,============================================ SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto TRANSIT `-O----------O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca
