On Aug 14, 2005, at 9:34 PM, Holly Bostick wrote:
Paul Hoy schreef:
See inline
On Aug 14, 2005, at 5:51 PM, Holly Bostick wrote:
Nick Rout schreef:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 13:12:31 -0700
Zac Medico wrote:
Hi Paul,
Are we really far behind? That's difficult to believe. For what
packages specifically? Do
you know how to unmask unstable packages (marked M or M~ at
packages.gentoo.org)?
Unstable does not really cut it IMHO. I am a gentoo enthusiast
through
and through, but plonking something in portage with a ~ beside
it does
not constitute a release of a recent version IMHO.
OK, I'll bite. What then do you consider "a release of a recent
version"
to be constituted from?
I don't really understand your question. The most recent version
to me
coincides to a release date closest to whatever today is.
OK, so what you're saying is that an application's entry into Portage
unstable does not constitute a 'release' of the package in Gentoo
terms,
as far as you're concerned? So until Firefox 1.0.6 and KDE 3.4.2
propagate down to stable (which could take time, admittedly), it's not
actually released? Well, to each his or her own, I guess.
If it's been released upstream, and it's in Portage a couple of
hours
later, so I can install it, I don't know what more you could
want....
what, you want a Mandrake- (or worse, still, Debian) -style wait of
months before you can use the upstream version?
I don't agree with you. There are many examples where a file that has
been released upstream has not found its way into Portage. I've
provided examples elsewhere in this thread. You can also compare with
the Fedora feedlist.
Yes, I know. I'm creating a list of interesting programs I've
discovered
that aren't in Portage or b.g.o, to practice my ebuild writing skills.
But you know, I don't give the first hairy hoot about the Fedora
feedlist. This idea that 'marking' a package 'stable' is some kind of
magic bullet that actually *makes* the package stable is starting
to get
on my nerves a bit.
It appears I may be contradicting myself, but I agree with you here.
Fedora releases something as stable, but in some cases, it's far from
it. NetworkManager is my favourite example.
What Gentoo marks or doesn't mark the package, or in
fact whether or not it's in Portage, generally has nothing to do with
the status of the package itself. There are plenty of perfectly stable
packages in Gentoo unstable, plenty of stable ebuilds (meaning that
they
compile the application correctly, and beyond that point it depends on
the upstream stability) in b.g.o, and even a few on breakmygentoo.org.
And plenty of 'stable' packages that just act wonky in various ways as
upstream manages the changes in whatever they're doing (migrating
to the
freedesktop standard, implementing DirectX 9 support, working around
video driver bugs, kernel bugs, scheduler changes, you name it).
I use what I need, and I get what I need from wherever it may
happen to
be. Most of it comes from Portage, of course, but I've got some
ebuilds
in my overlay from b.g.o, a couple from Project Utopia, and some perl
Yes, I've scanned over the instructions for creating your own ebuilds
and I've experimented with the Gnome 2.12 beta ebuild put out by
someone.
modules from cpan. It all works pretty well, and when it doesn't, I
either ditch the package until it works a bit better, or fix it myself
(and report what I had to do up the chain, if appropriate). It all
looks
a bit patchwork I suppose, but it's my patchwork, and so I know what
sticky-out-bit goes where... most of the time. And I decide if there's
going to be sticky-out-bits at all...there's no way, with an ATI card,
that I'm going anywhere near the new modular X for quite a while, for
Yes, that is one of my great joys - having an ATI card on my Notebook.
example. But not because of Gentoo... because there's way too many
upstream cooks for me to think they're going to concoct a 'stable'
brew,
*for me*, anytime soon. I said before and I do believe that the Gentoo
dev team will do their very best (and that's damn good) to provide
stable ebuilds that work as well as possible, but there's way too much
whitewater flowing down the channel for me to believe that even
they can
successfully guide me through these difficult transitions.
It just seems to me that if you want or expect a team of well-paid
experts monitoring all possible inconveniences and smoothing them over
before you even see them... well, then Fedora would be the place to
be.
Or SuSE. Gentoo or Ubuntu, on the other hand....
Again, I don't think Fedora removes all the defects at all. SuSE
doesn't either, at least for the Gnome desktop. And, believe it not,
neither does Ubuntu, notably with packaging.
Holly
--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
