[ILUG] Suggestions for best 64 bit Linux distro?

[Dave O' Connor]

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Colm Buckley wrote:

> On 23 Jun 2005, at 10:22, Dave O' Connor wrote:
>
> > And what is it about Gentoo that gets certain, normally reasonable, debian
> > users frothing at the mouth.
>
> I can actually take a stab at answering that one.  Debian was the first distro
> to make the model of centralised binary distribution with regular, automatable
> updates work.  It was a conscious move away from the Slack model of
> download-configure-make-install which led to so much heartache and grief (lack
> of dependency resolution, lack of consistent and rigorous rules about what a
> package should be and how it should behave, and so on).  Debian's developers
> saw these as real impediments to Linux's adoption, as they made both
> installation and maintenance horribly difficult and time-consuming.
>
> Their solution *worked*.  Debian systems can be installed in a jiffy, and kept
> up to date with virtually no administrator effort.  Big win.
>
> Then along comes Gentoo, promoting exactly the kind of local lunacy which
> Debian tried so hard to overcome.  It's not that Gentoo is a threat to
> *Debian*, but rather that Gentoo, to Debian users and developers, represents a
> reversion to barbarism and is hence a threat to the maturity and usability of
> Linux as a whole.  It's as though someone suddenly suggested that car buyers
> would be best served by shipping a bucket of parts to each home.
>
> This is my opinion as to why Debian users in particular don't like Gentoo.
> Debian has spent a lot of time and effort *crafting* a beautiful distribution,
> and we don't like the sheer ugliness of Gentoo.

So, let's get this clear, Debian was created to remove the configure,
make, make install pita that linux had previously been, but now gentoo has
brought it back? weird, I've only had to compile two packages by hand
which is a lot less than I had to do under Debian.

> > I can see some of your points but I also see that you're also talking
> > rubbish about it in some places. Whether that's because you're uninformed or
> > because you're spreading fud is something only you can clarify.
>
> Can you point out the rubbish?  I'm definitely not uninformed; I installed
> Gentoo several times to try it out (it was sufficiently "different" to spark
> my interest), and I have no interest in spreading FUD.  If you can point to
> something I've said which is demonstrably wrong, I'd love to be corrected.

I don't have the email on me right now but if I remember correctly it was
you who stated that packages were being recompiled every day because of
version bumps?

> > There's nothing stopping you compiling the packages as a binary package and
> > getting them from your own local repository if you do have 10,000 or even
> > 100 machines.
>
> ... in which case, why use Gentoo at all?

You implied that gentoo was at a disadvantage because you had to recompile
packages on every machine. See above re: uninformed/fud

It isn't at a disadvantage for that reason... why *not* use gentoo in that
case? (I'm addressing just your point about it being difficult if you have
a large number of machines).

It may be a distinct advantage to certain people who have specific
requirements for certain packages on a large number of machines where
gentoo can add or remove what's not necessary using USE flags, under
debian it requires a recompile *anyway* if you have specific, unmet
requirement in comparison to the binaries.

> > I'm happy with the distro I'm using. Maybe when I get another machine I'll
> > give it a spin but for now gentoo does exactly what I want the way I want it
> > and I see no advantages whatsoever moving to ubuntu on machines that are
> > working just fine.
>
> Remember the original question : someone is looking for a *new* distribution
> to support AMD64.  Ubuntu and Gentoo have both been suggested.  If you want to
> stick with Gentoo on your existing systems, that's perfectly fine with me.
> I'm trying to argue the point that Ubuntu makes more sense than Gentoo for a
> new box.  I would wager quite significant sums on Ubuntu requiring less effort
> to install and maintain, and having a more complete feature set and level of
> component integration, than Gentoo.

Gentoo wasn't especially meant to be easy to install, although people are
working on a graphical installer as I'm sure you know. It's not meant for
newbies and no one has claimed it is.

As I've said, I don't know if Ubuntu does or doesn't have a more complete
feature set, but when you put something down in the way you have and with
claims that are just plain false then you can't be surprised when people
respond as they have.

Personally one of the things I've liked so much about gentoo is its
integration and how tidy it keeps things, although there is still room for
improvement. How exactly does Ubuntu improve on that? Maintenance is also
easy, requiring only a sync, update and then configuration file changes
which are few and far between. Sounds much like debian now that I think
about it...


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