Also, remember that there are still a large number of us *ix users
that prefer to roll our own, and regardless of the packaging system
provided by the OS, I’m gonna go get & compile for myself… I prefer
things that way… Then I know what I have and where I’ve put it.
I’ve never had a lick of trouble with a system I setup this way… my
mileage with OS provided packages, unfortunately don’t hold that same
quality.
Well Jacob, you succeed in communicating four things in your reply here.
was this one thing that attracted me to the distribution in the first
idling there, and remember… /lastlog is your friend.
might require more dedication on your part. Gentoo is hands-on. But
it’s really good for people who like to tinker. Good luck.
I do too, actually, in certain circumstances. The nice thing I like
about Ports/Portage is it almost is compiling from scratch, just
edit the Makefile/ebuild to change how it builds. The reason I prefer
not to roll-my-own is… I forget to upgrade. Yeah, it’s bad of me,
but I just can’t help but like to “emerge -uD --newuse world” or
“portupgrade -a” every couple days and be up-to-date a couple minutes
later I’ve always hated binary packages (rpms especially).
Debian/Ubuntu’s system isn’t bad for a simple, no-muss-no-fuss
development box, I’ve found recently.
And just to through another contender into the mix:
I just installed OpenBSD for my firewall box, and I’ve fallen in love.
Everything’s chrooted by default, and you are encouraged to compile
your software from source. The Ports collection has many rather large
omissions, but it functions very well for providing infrastructure
(libraries and stuff you don’t really care about) on which you compile
your “business software” (e.g. Ruby, lighttpd). Secondly: It doesn’t
use rc-scripts. I hate those. Sure, they’re nice when restarting
lighttpd for example, but some Linux systems have an init system so
bloated and confusing I start to cry. And you can just implement
whatever init script system you want, and call the scripts in the two (nice small number, eh?) master startup/shutdown scripts. Also,
it boots ferociously quickly compared to my Linux boxes. Seeing it go
up so quickly makes me smile
It’s secure, and drop-dead simple (can you tell I like simple? Not
easy, just simple.). OpenBSD just clicks with me, I recommend that
those who haven’t tried it do so on a spare box!
