I was once a Gentoo fan for its emerge and quick releases, but I too got sick of compiling everything (and re-compiling when I made config mistakes) so I switched to Debian. I couldn't be happier. I have far fewer problems, far less hassle and since I use "unstable" I have pretty much the latest packages. Every once in a while I have to roll back to a previous version of something for awhile, but for the most part, it's solid. Gentoo is great for what it is; just realize what it is: a compiled-from-scratch distribution. For most people, that means it's a weekend toy, not a daily system you can depend on. Debian is all about being easy to get up and keep up.
Sean O'Dell On Tuesday 21 September 2004 13:59, Robert Brinson wrote: > Currently, I am a Gentoo Linux user. It is a great distribution for > people who want fine control over their system. I enjoy being able to > just emerge whatever_program. However, I am getting a little tired of > having to compile every little obscure library for a point update. So, I > guess you could say I'm in the market for a new distro. > > I have used Red Hat (not Fedora), Mandrake, and Gentoo. Of all of them, > I enjoy the control I have with Gentoo. I guess I'm looking for a distro > that will allow me to obtain the latest xorg or gnome or firefox without > having to go through a three hour compile session. RPM is not suitable > for this, as I know from experience. Red Hat and Mandrake are very picky > about dependencies making an upgrade of gnome or kde nearly impossible. > One ends up in the RPM equivalent of dll hell. apt-get seems well suited > for my needs. That is why I am posting to this debian list. However, > when I browsed the package repositories on debian.org, I was > disappointed. The stable repository is woefully out of date. The latest > unstable gnome is version 2.6, and xorg is not even listed. Is it > possible to easily have a debian install with the latest gnome 2.8 and > xorg 6.8.1? I did see a debian-based distro called ubuntu that has gnome > 2.8 out of the box. However, their faq says that one should not mix > mainstream debian debs with ubuntu debs. So, that distro would preclude > me from taking advantage of all of the packages in the debian > repository. So, does anyone have advice for this situation? Am I asking > the impossible of the current state of debian? > > Thanks for any insight. > > Robert Brinson > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > "The solution to any problem -- work, love, money, whatever -- is to go > fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." â > John Gierach
