Reply With QuoteHeh, that is interesting - those are the only OSs I'll use when given a choice (plus OpenBSD). I don't think of them as expert OSs or anything, but they are the only ones that I can manage without continually saying, "why the hell did they do that?" If we continue to put efforts into these OSs, then I believe the OSS arena will be correctly refined.Originally Posted by Joe Sixpack
I understand that the Gentoo crowd does not want negative publicity from Phoronix articles, but I don't know what else one would expect. I guess it is a bigger deal because there aren't many popular articles on Gentoo being released in what we would call the 'mainstream internet' - just the meme-like Ubuntu. And I know that it is "getting people to go linux!!11," but is it really beneficial use of persuasion. I'm not saying nothing good has come from Ubuntu, but advertising is for commercial software - and advertising Linux distributions will eventually cause them to take on some of the properties of commercial software. This is not negative or bashing commentary, but positive commentary for Linux idealism. Just like, for example, Apple idealism having many users that contribute money.
Just like Slackware, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD - Gentoo is a very beautiful OS. It is, in fact, probably the most self-sustaining OS - which is the cause of its observed issues. Gentoo is based on a more complex system that can be prone to more problems than the other OSs I've mentioned - and furthermore depends on the exposure of its users to this system. So by default the ineffectiveness and inefficiencies of developing an OS for users that have the mechanics of the OS - which are the primary concern for developers - hidden from them are nullified. I understand that the same is true for LFS, but in addition Gentoo has the ability to use these powers to continually update the abilities of all its users systems without forcing them to individually improve everything; Gentoo allows for a nearly perfect ratio of user/dev responsibility. Hence my description of Gentoo as a "self-sustaining OS."
Several have posted already that they install Gentoo using other distributions and liveCDs. I would recommend that the Gentoo developers get rid of the live CD and just write up a small guide for “n00b users” on how to easily install it with systemrescueCD or one of the numerous other methods described on their forums. I know they would like the publicity of their own official GUI installation, but just look at how great Gentoo has become without that publicity – and how great Gentoo will continue to be without the positive publicity of Phoronix.
