Gentoo advantage? (was: [TriLUG] What distro do you use AT WORK on your SERVERS.)

[Randy Barlow]

William Sutton wrote:

>It's sort of inaccurate to say "if you don't want $FOO, don't use $FOO."  
>For example, if I want to have gaim or grip, I have to install bonobo, no 
>matter how much I dislike bonobo.
>  
>
Yeah, I agree here - package dependencies can cause you to install 
things you may not want.  I guess a better way to word it is just that 
Gentoo gives you more choices than most binary distributions will...

>I don't think it is a production system.  Gentoo is notorious for 
>releasing changes without doing thorough testing (google for the apache 
>1.series to apache 2.series breakages), for example.
>  
>
I can actually attest to problems during upgrades with my Gentoo 
system.  Actually, some of my problems have to do with my own 
incompetence :)  So it may not be a great production system, but I think 
it can be a useful system nonetheless.

-- 
Randy Barlow
Research Assistant
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
rpbarlow at ncsu.edu