tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post1554230891406030831..comments2008-04-28T22:09:02.464-07:00Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07727500147159729518noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post-4109279472852884512008-04-28T22:09:00.000-07:002008-04-28T22:09:00.000-07:00linuxtidbits: thanks<BR/><BR/>its not really configurability issue for me, its time spending/productivity versus the "sense" that I have a granular customized system.<BR/><BR/>I don't care that much about fine tuning if it costs me a lot of time to do.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07727500147159729518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post-2611503161714415862008-04-28T12:44:00.000-07:002008-04-28T12:44:00.000-07:00love gentoo, probably always will. good luck with ubi, my second fav distro, much easier to install.. customized takes more work. A nice balance (so I hear) is Arch which allows customization but doesn't require the degree of detail that Gentoo does.linuxtidbitshttp://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post-83811901507006915452008-04-23T23:00:00.000-07:002008-04-23T23:00:00.000-07:00@Matt<BR/><BR/>Wow, I didn't know I have "longtime" readers :-). That's cool.<BR/><BR/>I have used Fedora 8 lately, for the private purposes. I do like some aspects of it, such as feel of complete integration within the system, but there were too many annoyances. Programs that for some reason didn't have packages for Fedora, many packages were out of date, some things should have been enabled manually (such as notorious mp3 and other multimedia codecs issues), etc. So in the long run, I will either go with Ubuntu (which is much more desktop-oriented, and I don't care for purists speak, I need those mp3's playing), or CentOS - which is the same as Fedora, but more robust and stable (as its like RH enterprise servers), and that robustness will cover for manual media installation.<BR/><BR/>@Brian<BR/><BR/>Brian, I've never said I want 5 minute installation. I don't really care for how long system will install or update itself, I just don't want to intervene in the process. I don't believe that the concept is user friendly enough. I've worked my time as an IT engineer, and I don't think that IT folk like to tinker manually either with each machine they have.<BR/><BR/>Now for the Gentoo's target audience and "problems", lets take a moment into a history. I'm talking about personal experience here of course, so bear with me. At the time, circa 2003, I had enough with Red Hat (I believe it was RH 9), and all other rpm systems sucked big time. After trial and error, I started to use Madrake (at the time), and <B>installed all my applications manually</B> because I didn't trust rpm installations, that didn't really worked anyway.<BR/><BR/>So you can imagine my joy and bliss when I came to Gentoo (after trying FreeBSD by the way - I like it very much too). Gentoo did exactly what I needed, that is installing packages from source, but in a very cool automatic fashion.<BR/><BR/>And you know what? I think that many many users at the time were just like me - installing programs manually from source. And that is why Gentoo had success.<BR/><BR/>Now, lets fast forward to the future, into this day. I not familiar with a distribution, that do not use some sort of package management. And boy, these managers are so decent and very good, that <I>there's no need to install packages manually for generic purposes</I> anymore. That's why many many users <B> will not use Gentoo</B> on their desktop. That was my point.<BR/><BR/>Now, to the subject of "power-users" - yes, I know there are features that Gentoo offers and they are great. But so is Debian. And hence Ubuntu. But Ubuntu is also featuring that 5-minutes installations you're talking about.<BR/><BR/>In the end it comes to the following: how many tweaking am I have to do <I>to install</I> the OS versus <I>actual work I need to perform</I> on the computer. If this ratio is not kept less than 1/10, I consider it as lost time. And many users are too.<BR/><BR/>And that's the reason you don't see vanilla Gentoo on the desktop anymore. And that's why it's less popular.<BR/><BR/>And that's the "problem" of Gentoo.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07727500147159729518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post-29284385389122561882008-04-23T10:32:00.000-07:002008-04-23T10:32:00.000-07:00If you want everything to install in 5 minutes via point-and-click with no intervention, then no, Gentoo isn't for you. How could you imagine that it would be for you? That's not Gentoo's target audience. It's not a "problem" with Gentoo. I don't think Gentoo was ever meant for the majority.<BR/><BR/>There's always a tradeoff between power and user-friendliness. Gentoo lets you do things that a power-user wants to do, that other distros won't let you do as easily. If you don't need to do those things, then there's no point using Gentoo. Ubuntu has many weaknesses too (e.g. the first time you want to install an app for which there's no package in the repository, or want to install a package with different options built in than what the repo gives you).Brianhttp://briancarper.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559310080260083768.post-38578543139049701022008-04-23T09:37:00.000-07:002008-04-23T09:37:00.000-07:00Hi Alex,<BR/>Longtime reader of your blog - first time commenting though.<BR/><BR/>I had the same issue last year - something broke that required my intervention...and I finally said, "that's it, I've had it". I was, like you, taking care of my computer too much as opposed to the opposite. <BR/><BR/>I switched to Fedora, and now Kubuntu...and at times, it can be boring because nothing tends to break :D - but it's worth it, as I get more done and am more productive than ever.<BR/><BR/>Good luck - I hope the switch works out for you...it did for me!<BR/><BR/>Regards,<BR/>MattMatthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16831478893654787075noreply@blogger.com