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Gentoo didn't mark 4.14 as stable (it has its own procedures for stability despite the kernel folks treating 14 as the new LTS following 9), so only users who i

by Jach 9y ago

Gentoo didn't mark 4.14 as stable (it has its own procedures for stability despite the kernel folks treating 14 as the new LTS following 9), so only users who immediately upgraded to it (manually specifying they wanted it) would be affected by this. I really think gentoo has the best packaging story of Linux distros, except perhaps 'newer' stuff like nixos/guix. Rolling releases (my gentoo box has a continuity since 2009 with nothing ever resembling a dist-upgrade of other distros that you're forced to do to get the latest and greatest), generally gets the latest versions of stuff and their patches first or among the first if you want to live on the bleeding edge, it's easy to find overlay packages for things not in the main tree, and even create your own 'packages' since everything is source-based, USE flags for customization, and anyway it has a good stable-only option too.

vthriller 9y ago
And unlike in other rolling release distros (or at least unlike in ArchLinux; [citation needed]), emerge is smart enough to keep older versions of .so files so you're less likely to get unusable system/programs due to partial upgrades: [0]. I really cannot use Arch on personal computers simply because sometimes I need to keep various packages at older versions for various reasons (bugs, coredumps still in TODO, sensitive processes still running, whatever), so I inevitably end up choosing between bar+libfoo.so.X, baz+libfoo.so.Y, and rebuilding everything from scratch. (Edit: and I also cannot install older version of baz 'cause it's already gone from the mirrors.) [0] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Preserved-rebuild https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Preserved-rebuild
- Jach 9y ago
  Yeah. Plus things like quickpkg (make a backup of your older installed package whose version may no longer be in the tree), demerge (record states of installed packages and configs over time), slots (conflicting pkg versions like gtk2 and gtk3 being installed at the same time) all make for more niceness. It's definitely possible to go overboard and get into trouble. But there's a lot to help. And with gentoo I was able to weather the gnome3/systemd madness and keep that stuff off my system despite having to keep around old gnome2 and udev packages until mate, eudev, etc. were ready. I don't know too much about Arch except the pain stories friends have relayed as they eventually gave up and switched to something else. Back when Arch decided to make Python 3 the default python well before it was ready someone on IRC quipped "<dash> well that confirms my impression that arch was invented by a bunch of guys who thought gentoo was too stable and easy to use".
  - bandrami 9y ago
    I haven't used Gentoo in about 10 years, but maybe I should give it a look again. I remember seeing it allows musl as a system C library, which is cool. I think mostly I just prefer the pace of Slackware though.

by Jach 9y ago

vthriller 9y ago

And unlike in other rolling release distros (or at least unlike in ArchLinux; [citation needed]), emerge is smart enough to keep older versions of .so files so you're less likely to get unusable system/programs due to partial upgrades: [0]. I really cannot use Arch on personal computers simply because sometimes I need to keep various packages at older versions for various reasons (bugs, coredumps still in TODO, sensitive processes still running, whatever), so I inevitably end up choosing between bar+libfoo.so.X, baz+libfoo.so.Y, and rebuilding everything from scratch. (Edit: and I also cannot install older version of baz 'cause it's already gone from the mirrors.) [0] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Preserved-rebuild https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Preserved-rebuild

Jach 9y ago
Yeah. Plus things like quickpkg (make a backup of your older installed package whose version may no longer be in the tree), demerge (record states of installed packages and configs over time), slots (conflicting pkg versions like gtk2 and gtk3 being installed at the same time) all make for more niceness. It's definitely possible to go overboard and get into trouble. But there's a lot to help. And with gentoo I was able to weather the gnome3/systemd madness and keep that stuff off my system despite having to keep around old gnome2 and udev packages until mate, eudev, etc. were ready. I don't know too much about Arch except the pain stories friends have relayed as they eventually gave up and switched to something else. Back when Arch decided to make Python 3 the default python well before it was ready someone on IRC quipped "<dash> well that confirms my impression that arch was invented by a bunch of guys who thought gentoo was too stable and easy to use".
- bandrami 9y ago
  I haven't used Gentoo in about 10 years, but maybe I should give it a look again. I remember seeing it allows musl as a system C library, which is cool. I think mostly I just prefer the pace of Slackware though.