I'm new to this list and to Gentoo. I'm curious if/when
Gentoo might
have a "release" type portage branch that only
gets security updates and
severe bug fixes. I noticed that on the list of goals for
this server
project, so I'm hoping this is the right place to post
this. Here is
the background that builds up to this question and sort of
my hope for
Gentoo.
I've tried many different distros. I am planning to run a
small website
on my server with apache, tomcat, php, postgresql and
bugzilla, so to me
it is like a "production" machine, but this
clearly isn't a large
corporate type environment, and I'm trying to choose the
right distro
for this. But this really isn't a "which distro is
best" question.
I run linux on my laptop for my own personal projects and to
learn. I
had debian for a short while, but as it typically goes, I
was unhappy
with the old-ness of the applications and never felt right
about running
something called "testing" or
"unstable". I tried Fedora for a day or
two but it just didn't seem right and I hated yum. I have
used
slackware quite a bit. I had avoided slackware for a long
time because
of it's lack of "real" package management, but
once I started using it,
I was thinking "wow, why isn't this more popular,
it's great!". I
started to dislike automatic package managers and dependency
checking in
other distros. Too many times I'd install something like
python and it
would download X because of the dependencies the package
builder
included. And once I went to uninstall Mozilla because I
was using
firefox instead and it told me it would have to uninstall
Gnome, again
because of the dependencies. So everytime I changed
distros, I ended up
back at slackware.
My biggest problem with slackware though is the lack of
"official"
packages for things like tomcat and postgresql, php, etc.
and it
doesn't have as much of a "community" feel.
The other problem I kept
facing is I would find a package for something like php, but
it would be
compiled with mysql support and not postgresql, so I needed
to compile
my own. Of course, all the while as I'm
"playing" with these different
distros on my laptop and doing development, I'm thinking
of the future
when my code will be "released" and I'll have a
server to maintain. As
soon as I compile my own apps, I own those apps and have to
ensure I
find security notifications and recompile in a timely
fashion and do all
this manually. And this whole project is done in my spare
time, and
there is not a lot of that for sure.
One day I tried Gentoo, despite all the install horror
stories I heard.
It took me a while to install, but I fell in love with
Gentoo right
away. It has a great community, the apps are up-to-date,
and it will
compile everything according to how I want it. I don't
really care
about the possible speed diff between compiling for i486 or
i686 nor do
I care to play with the latest compiler optimizations, I
just want the
configure options I need for the apps.
Now, the only problem I have is one day I update the portage
tree and
upgrade my apps and suddenly I'm getting new things like
bash and
libraries that I consider "core" parts of my
system that I don't want
upgraded suddenly.
It seems every distro gets this wrong. Debian calls
everything unstable
if it's a newer version, but it's stable branch is very
stable, and
other distros make releases almost weekly and upgrade every
part of the
system from the kernel on up. I hate to say it but Windows
seems to
have it right here. New windows versions come up very
infrequently,
although you get frequent security and bug "service
packs". However, my
windows 2000 doesn't run 6 year old applications, it runs
the latest
Eclipse and jdk and tomcat and apache and postgresql,
because I need the
features of the latest versions.
So it seems to me there is an important distinction here. I
want my
"base" operating system to be solid and
dependable and change
infrequently (yet get security updates), but at the same
time, user
applications need to be the latest version and I'm willing
to accept
more risk to run the latest jdk or tomcat or eclipse because
I need the
latest features, they don't need to be 6 years old to be
called "stable".
All of that said, I haven't found the perfect distro yet,
but Gentoo
seems to be the closest, missing only a more stable
"release" portage
branch that only gets security updates and severe bug fixes,
yet still
lets me get the absolute latest Eclipse and jdk. Currently
I'm running
Slackware and have been experimenting with making my own
SlackBuilds to
build packages from source, but it seems so redundant and I
can't stop
wishing I had Gentoo. The other night I installed FreeBSD,
but I
instantly miss Linux where I felt much more at home, but BSD
does have
the build from source I need and also a more stable source
tree. But I
miss emerge, and equery was about my favorite thing in the
world, and
the Gentoo community just cannot be beat.: there are answers
to
everything and tons of helpful people.
So, is there any hope for me? I thought maybe I'd send
this email and
encourage your efforts towards Gentoo for servers and maybe
put in a
request for small steps like a more stable portage tree.
Anyway, thanks
for listening.
mike
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