23 Jun
2004
23 Jun
'04
5:43 p.m.
Mike Pressel wrote:
The problem with SuSE is that if you want to do
something your way
instead of SuSE's way, than your nice integrated system starts falling apart.
I think SuSE is a system for people who don't care how it works, just that it
works.
I'd like to get it running fast, yes, but as I get more skilled with it,
I'd also like to tweak it. So SuSE is not for me.
Last month, I installed Gentoo on my work laptop and
now I'm hooked. Portage
is a great packaging system and it is well documented. Contrary to what's
been said, there are binary packages available for selected packages in
Gentoo. Try using the --usepkgonly option with emerge. Large things like
KDE and Gnome generally have something available for them. What I personally
like about Gentoo is that it forces me to learn a bit more about how my linux
system works. Like Slackware, it is updated very quickly and there is a huge
database of packages available. My only gripe with Gentoo is that a
broadband connection is absolutely necessary, otherwise things break on you.
I installed Gentoo 2004.0, worked ok. Later, I installed 2004.1 from
scratch, and I had plenty of problems - my network card was no longer
recognized, for example. That put me off.
I've just had a look at the packages, and they do look complete. What do
you usually do: compile from source or use packages?
-pu