Re: [tlug] advice to consider upgrading to RH9

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

Quoth Matt Doughty (Wed 2003-08-13 02:21:24AM +0900):

> Hey, fast installs are great and all, but lets get down to the meat of
> things:

I will be speaking for Gentoo here.

> 1. is /etc sane and orderly?

Yes, /etc is pretty nice. Each package that requires multiple files in /etc
gets its own directory, e.g. /etc/ssh/sshd_config and /etc/ssh/ssh_config
instead of /etc/sshd_config and /etc/ssh_config.

> 2. do startup scripts use the rcordered approach or dependency resolution?

Dependency resolution.

> 3. are packages installed somewhere other than /usr (ie /usr/pkg) and is
>    is configurable?

Tragically not.

> 4. is there a base system, and how functionally complete is it? 

Yes, a very complete one.

> 5. PAMified or not?

Of course.

> I'm still looking for a *BSDish distro for when I need some feature
> that (Net|Free)BSD doesn't support or when I am mandated to use 
> Linux.

Now, having said all this, I still prefer NetBSD in theory. However, Linux
has a lot more developers, and thus drivers for weirdo hardware seem to
come out there first. So, for now, I am running a Linux kernel. (Case in
point, my bloody laptop won't run X reliably in NetBSD without segfaults.
Gentoo works just fine.)

The other reason that I stick with Gentoo is that I like Portage better
than Ports. It has some neat features that I really missed when I went to
NetBSD fulltime. So I had to come back.

You have a point about from-source being a bit time-consuming. What I would
like to see is Portage to provide pre-built binaries, targetted for my
architecture and configuration. The problem is, you lose all of the flex-
ibility that being able to set compile-time (./configure) options. And you
end up with a Red Hat-like situation where you cannot install GAIM without
GtkSpell, despite not giving a rat's rear end about spelling errors in your
Jabber chats. :)

The good news for me is that an effort has begun in the Gentoo community to
port Portage itself to other distros. The day that I can use Portage under
NetBSD, my Linux days will be numbered. However, that day still looks six
to twelve months out.

-- 
Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>

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