Gentoo - being different as it is - a metadistro, is by far the most easy to mantain and support installs I've ever used. Most, if not all, problems usually exist because some companies still relay in a single distro specific behavior (companies that do not see the "big picture"), the rest is pure beta testing result of your environment.
Gentoo is tied to upstream, the devs discuss, patch and help upstream, with a user test base of thousands of users that daily read this ML and go to the forums. This distro, along with all the benefits, still contributes to upstream availability and stability, because we COMPILE the source on so many different hardware/software combinations. I would say Gentoo's bugzilla is where users (yes, those who do not write C code) can expect their problems to be solved by experts, even upstream developers, if someone think they should know about it, while contributing for that specific package stability. We are the "high level" (in programming sense) code test people! I feel proud of that. Besides, with all the enhancements of the last few years, Gentoo has become easy to install, overcoming problems like the "whole day install process" and the "hours of compile time to get a browser" problems that people who do not like Gentoo always use over the net stating that "their distro is better". Add to all that the FREEDOM, some people already stated that in this thread. That is, by far (for me) the most incredible feature of Gentoo. You can build a server, a desktop or a damn small kiosk with little or no knowledge, because since the very begin you DECIDE what you want, and that freedom keeps going till your system dies of age or you decide to "kill" it! ;-) And still, with all this benefits, the devs still provide a easy to use package management system with so many features I haven't used most yet over this 3 years of being a Gentoo user. Gentoo is not dying, it is pretty healthy, I don't even know how someone that frequently reads this ML can think something like that. If the devs stop, or the distro is not healthy, problems occur, this problems sum up till its dead, like the old "conectiva" distro I used four years ago, but that is a long, painful agonizing process, not something that comes in a day... I don't feel any symptoms. -- Daniel da Veiga Computer Operator - RS - Brazil -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCM/IT/P/O d-? s:- a? C++$ UBLA++ P+ L++ E--- W+++$ N o+ K- w O M- V- PS PE Y PGP- t+ 5 X+++ R+* tv b+ DI+++ D+ G+ e h+ r+ y++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
