Mailing List Archive

As far as a server goes, gentoo has made my administration life a lot
easier. There are a lot more packages with gentoo than I've seen with
say redhat. When I had to administer redhat servers, I had to pretty
much compile every program by hand to get things working properly.
There wasn't a lot of packages I needed, and if they had the package,
they didn't have the configs built in, or a supplement rpm to add that
config option. Gentoo is very customizible also.

As a desktop gentoo works well also. I don't have any complaints
there. I can't say too much about it 'cause I use winNT and winXP most
of the time for a desktop.

You don't have to do version upgrades with gentoo either. It's all the
same version. With other distros you'll have to upgrade your version
or the rpm/deb's won't work or be out of date. And most distros don't
support more than 2 version back. Now that I can a hassle.

Gentoo is definitely the way to go.

-Josh


On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:03:16 +0000, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
> a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
> It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
> if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
> commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
> could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
> just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
> (relative term).
>
> - Grant
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Grant wrote:

>I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
>a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
>It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
>if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
>commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
>could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
>just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
>(relative term).
>
>- Grant
>
>--
>gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
>
>
>
how about less choices in packages and you can't get a more stable OS
than one built from source if done right

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:22:54 -0400, Ralph <res0r9lm@tampadsl.net> wrote:
>I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
>a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
>It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
>if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
>commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
>could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
>just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
>(relative term).

I used to have Debian at my home computer and company servers, but no more.
Main problem I see with Debian is that all binaries are compiled for a
386 processor. So, it doesn't matter if your processor supports other
sets of instructions (that are more efficient), they won't use it. And
no, it's not a mere <2% speed difference, in fact, it's pretty
notable.
Other problem: you always install the binary packages. The moment you
want to install something by compiling, you will have to download tons
and tons of -dev packages. I had some problems with this, and they
went even worse, because the program I wanted to compile needed a
library (and their headers) newer than the library dpkg had. Was a
great PITA.
Also, IMHO, portage is _the_ way to go. I used to think dpkg was all
that great, and so on, but portage is really much better.

--
Bruno Lustosa, aka Lofofora | Email: bruno@lustosa.net
Network Administrator/Web Programmer | ICQ: 1406477
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil |

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On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:03:16 +0000 Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
| I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
| a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
| It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
| if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
| commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
| could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
| just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
| (relative term).

Debian is a lot less flexible and a lot more religious.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

I do agree about the religius issue conserning debian distro. But in
fact the matter of distro is irrelevant. All distro's provide you a
console, and vi(m) allowing you to do virtually everything you want.
There certently is a distro that is helpful, easy to use for the
not-expirienced user , but I assure you there is _not one_ distro
helpful for the advanced user. As far concerning the dispute about
flexibility etc, at all linux a tar -zxvf blah.tar.gz;cd blah;
./configure --X -Y -Z; make (linux-)install; should do it's job at
most cases.I personally choose gentoo because I can clean-install
easily a 100% customized distro to my pc without having to warry a lot
for an installation. Also the tree is kul especially with all
dependencies.

IMHO have phun with linux. _NOT_ gentoo...
-
Undergraduate Student of CEID

**Warning gmail may affect your mailing privacy**
If you like to mail me private please use:
korkakak *at* ceid *dot* upatras *dot* gr and my public key from
http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~korkakak/mykey

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On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:08:54 +0300 Nikolaos Korkakakis
<korkakak@gmail.com> wrote:
| I do agree about the religius issue conserning debian distro. But in
| fact the matter of distro is irrelevant. All distro's provide you a
| console, and vi(m) allowing you to do virtually everything you want.
| There certently is a distro that is helpful, easy to use for the
| not-expirienced user , but I assure you there is _not one_ distro
| helpful for the advanced user. As far concerning the dispute about
| flexibility etc, at all linux a tar -zxvf blah.tar.gz;cd blah;
| ./configure --X -Y -Z; make (linux-)install; should do it's job at
| most cases.

If you're going to just constantly go outside of the package manager,
just use LFS. The whole point of a distribution is that you *don't* have
to screw around to build stuff.

And religion *is* important. Have fun trying to get working Java support
using only debian-officially-approved packages...

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

For a workstation, it's a no-brainer to go with Gentoo over Debian for me.
I've used both extensively, and unless you want to go Debian-unstable
(but then again, I use ~x86 in gentoo), you'll always be typically
at least a version behind on things (KDE, Gnome, X, etc.).
Debian is probably the slowest to add new features, which is
both a strength and a weakness. It's stable branch has always
proven very stable in my experience, but to get newer software
packages requires using testing or unstable,
which CAN cause problems or not install properly.

I've found Debian to be rock solid for a standard server (not needing
things overly cutting edge).

If I am setting up a server to handle samba, apache, ftp, mail, etc., I
almost always go the debian route. Install it, configure it, set up
the cron jobs to handle apt-get updates, and completely forget about
it.

Just my experience with things. YMMV.
-cliff

At 11:03 AM 9/17/2004, you wrote:
>I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
>a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
>It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
>if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
>commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
>could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
>just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
>(relative term).
>
>- Grant
>
>--
>gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

--
Cliff Wagner (edge@edge-zone.net)
Visit The Edge Zone: http://www.edge-zone.net

"Man will Occasionally stumble over the truth, but most
of the time he will pick himself up and continue on."
-- Winston Churchill



--
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I will offer that I learned almost nothing using Redhat for 2 years. I
just kept it at an arms lenght and got very frustrated in dependeny
hell. RPM makes it easy to break a machine. I know. I did it more than
once.

Since starting to use Gentoo I've learned a lot. (A lot for me - a
little compared to others here) No matter what anyone says about
Gentoo and newbies it is easy enough for even an *almost* beginner
like me. No dependency hell. A great users group. Very easy to combine
98% portage based code with 2% CVS code when you need it.

My dad is 76. Last Thanksgiving he dumped Windows and runs Gentoo.
He's never turned his windows box on since. I manage it from a
distance of 350 miles. this stuff works...

Cheers,
Mark

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 10:48:35 -0700, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> I will offer that I learned almost nothing using Redhat for 2 years. I
> just kept it at an arms lenght and got very frustrated in dependeny
> hell. RPM makes it easy to break a machine. I know. I did it more than
> once.
>
> Since starting to use Gentoo I've learned a lot. (A lot for me - a
> little compared to others here) No matter what anyone says about
> Gentoo and newbies it is easy enough for even an *almost* beginner
> like me. No dependency hell. A great users group. Very easy to combine
> 98% portage based code with 2% CVS code when you need it.

I think you are being overly harsh on yourself and redhat. Using *any*
linux distro, particularly anything other than gentoo, things often
don't work so you have to go searching to correct things. You learn a
lot about filesystems, permissions, shared libraries... I have to say
you only really learn things when they are broken though. With Gentoo
you have to learn about things, because you control things. But then
they work, or you know pretty much exactly what to do to fix it.
I know *plenty* of doze people, including admins, who would have a
nightmare installing gentoo. Firstly because they don't follow
instructions, and don't read all the docs properly. They also need
some knowledge on basic *nix concepts or they will be completely
lost... I think it is silly to recommend Gentoo to someone who hasn't
had at least six months on unix, but after 1 year on Mandrake I was
ready. Sure as anything I won't be touching another distros unless the
sky falls in now though!
Cheers
Antoine

>
> My dad is 76. Last Thanksgiving he dumped Windows and runs Gentoo.
> He's never turned his windows box on since. I manage it from a
> distance of 350 miles. this stuff works...
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>



--
G System, The Evolving GUniverse - http://www.g-system.at

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

I've been using Linux since 1993 (Slackware 1.0x), after dabbling with
SCO Unix/Xenix for several years. Switched to FreeBSD in 1996(?), and
then switched back to Linux (RedHat 5.2) in early 1999. Stayed with
RedHat and upgraded through every major release until the upgrade from
Fedora Core 1 -> 2 proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

In the interim, I have dabbled with Debian and other Linux
distributions, and also have bootstrapped systems from scratch (like
LFS, though using my own methods).

I first started working with Gentoo late last year, and made a
complete switch perhaps three months ago, on all five of my linux
systems (one server, two workstations, two laptops, all different
hardware).

Gentoo is more difficult to install than RedHat or Debian, that's for
sure - it requires a deeper understanding of what's going on "under
the hood" and has many traps for the unwary who deviate from the
install documentation, or who have unusual hardware. (In reality, the
hardest part of the install is probably getting the low-level stuff
right - disk partitioning, boot loader, kernel. Everything else is
pretty simple (although manual), especially if you do a stage3
install.

However, once installed, Gentoo is no more difficult to maintain than
any other flavor of Linux, and some tasks (particularily upgrades)
become much easier. For me, the benefits far outweigh the difficulty
of installation - especially for servers. I wanted my server
configured MY way - not how some architect at RedHat thought it ought
to be, and the judicious application of USE flags made it simple
without having to resort to hand-compiling a lot of source packages to
make it the way I wanted. This is something that _could_not_ be done
using RedHat's installer, and probably Debian's as well. All things
considered, it probably took less time to get things the way I wanted
them, even though the time from booting the installation media until
first boot was measured in days instead of hours.

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Grant wrote:

> I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
> a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
> It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
> if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
> commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
> could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
> just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
> (relative term).

It seems to me that you came to Gentoo just because of the hype too and
this must be the first time you are using Linux...

So, if you don't have much experience or wider perspective on
different distros, or Lnux in general, there is really nobody who can
tell you what to use and why in a completively understandable
manner. And if there were, you'd still lack the real experience and
knowledge.

This is why I recommend you to try different distros for a while and
see the differences between them for yourself. It would be very
educational too when it comes to general knowledge of Linux.

As for the server, I must wonder how on earth you got yourself into
the situation where you are installing a "commercial server" with the
obvious and severe lack of knowledge and experience in Linux...

--
T.G.

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Am Freitag, 17. September 2004 18.03 schrieb Grant:
> I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
> a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
> It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
> if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
> commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
> could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
> just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
> (relative term).
I have been using Debian for almost three years.

I just bought a Pegasos I (PowerPC CHRP-architecture) board to set up a new
homeserver and Gentoo was the only distro which had a bootable CD for this
architecture. So I tried to use Gentoo and was amazed how easy it was to set
it up and running. But as I compiled a lot of stuff it took me a lot longer
(in time) as after each half hour or so I could install a new package. The
instruction were very good and precise. I specially appreciated the
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/home-router-howto.xml.

On the other side there are still a lot of more packages in Debian (specially
testing and unstable), e.g. smokeping. And installing package is faster in
Debian, even when you might get better optimization with Gentoo (but I never
felt any difference in speed).

As I manage a lot of my configuration with cfengine there were a lot of files
which are in different places in Debian and Gentoo and which require ifdefs.
E.g. /etc/squid/squid.conf versus /etc/squid.conf. Or sometimes Debian has
a very different scheme to organize the conf scripts. E.g. exim or apache2.
Therefore I am still tempted to go back to Debian as soon as I can set up a
bootable Debian-CD.

So I think each distro has its own strengths and weeknesses. But as we enjoy
the freedom to tinker with all the software we have to assume our
responsability to choose the right tool for each problem.

Best regards

--
Niklaus Giger
Wieshoschet 6
CH-8753 Mollis
Tel. ++41 55 612 20 54 (privat)
Tel. ++41 55 618 64 68 (Geschäft)

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On Friday 17 September 2004 18:03, Grant wrote:
> I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
> a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
> It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
> if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
> commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
> could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
> just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
> (relative term).
>
> - Grant
>

if you have ever make anything, that the devs of debian did not forsee, you
are lost.

Using the ¤ sign? Setting other Lc's? Different fonts? Even java, debian tries
to make it hard to costumize it (debian). It is very stable, in the end, but
it is always a debian installation like it devs favored it, not what you
really wanted...

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 04:03:16PM +0000, thus spake Grant:
> I hyped up Gentoo to my buddy and he worked with the installation for
> a day or two, tried Debian, and is now very happy with that distro.
> It does sound like a lot less hassle. What would would make me sorry
> if I switched to Debian? I need something for a workstation and for a
> commercial server. I'd like them to be the same, but I suppose I
> could use two. It does seem like Gentoo has a lot of potential and is
> just starting to hit its stride while Debian is pretty mature
> (relative term).

I've run Debian on my desktop and Gentoo on my laptop for a couple of
years now, and I've definitely developed some opinions about the
differences.

For me the biggest difference goes in Debian's favor: since I don't
have much customizing needs, binary packages are plenty good enough
for me, and an update on my Debian machine can take orders of
magnitude less time than an update of my Gentoo box. When I'm
updating frequently (every few days) that's not such a big deal, but
if I go a couple of weeks without an update or if a big package (such
as Mozilla) has an update, it can be a real pain to take the time for
to recompile it all (and if OpenOffice has a new version, that's
overnight and then some!). If you're willing to automate updates with
a cron job, you can set it to happen regularly in the middle of the
night, but you probably will want to upgrade by hand on a commercial
server.

I also have found that Debian has a much wider range of packages
available than Gentoo--often I'll be looking for a program to do
something a little out of the ordinary (say, keep a database of bibtex
data) and I'll Google up a program to do the task, then I'll discover
that program is in Debian's package database but not Gentoo's. It
does go the other way sometimes, but I think it's just a fact that
Debian has a much larger number of packages than Gentoo.

However, I haven't left Gentoo on my laptop because there's just
something about it that I like--despite usually not needing more than
what Debian precompiles, I DO like having the ability to easily
customize my builds, and it's just FUN to say I have a system where
every single binary has been compiled on that system. =)

Also, another important factor is that it IS a pain to get Java set up
in Debian, along with a few other non-free things (mplayer being a
biggie...). This is another point in Gentoo's favor if you want the
functionality and don't care about the ideology the FSF and Debian
folks promote.

I hope this helps a bit. I think what it mostly comes down to in my
view is a tradeoff between great customizability and no ideological
restrictions on the one hand, and shorter upgrade time plus greater
overall package selection on the other hand. There certainly are
other factors in the choice, but this is what has been most important
in my experience.

Marco


--
"God comes to the hungry in the form of food."
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

--
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Brant Katkansky <brant.katkansky@gmail.com> writes:
> However, once installed, Gentoo is no more difficult to maintain than
> any other flavor of Linux, and some tasks (particularily upgrades)
> become much easier.

Gentoo is like a dishwashing machine. Suppose you like to install
software from source, rather than rely on your distribution's binary
releases. Tracking down sources, verifying their integrity, checking
for patches, verifying their integrity, writing or adapting package
building scripts, etc., etc. -- it's a lot of work. It's like washing
your dishes by hand. Gentoo clears up most of that work.

Don't forget to pre-rinse, though. :)


--
Barry.Schwartz@acm.org http://www.livejournal.com/users/chemoelectric/
"It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that
this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child."
-- Andrew Card

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On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 02:40:50PM -0700, Marco Barreno wrote:
<snip>
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 04:03:16PM +0000, thus spake Grant:
> I've run Debian on my desktop and Gentoo on my laptop for a couple of
> years now, and I've definitely developed some opinions about the
> differences.
>
> For me the biggest difference goes in Debian's favor: since I don't
> have much customizing needs, binary packages are plenty good enough
> for me, and an update on my Debian machine can take orders of
> magnitude less time than an update of my Gentoo box.

Why not use Gentoo's prebuilt packages?

# emerge --usepkg <whatever>

Toby
--
PhD Student
Quantum Information Theory group
Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics
Garching, Germany

email: toby@dr-qubit.org
web: www.dr-qubit.org

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On Friday 17 September 2004 23:58, BarrySchwartz124@comcast.net wrote:
>
> Gentoo is like a dishwashing machine.
<snip>
> Don't forget to pre-rinse, though. :)

pre-rinse? tsss.. you are not using the right dishwashing machine/cleaner.. or
your water is very hard ;o)


--
Conclusions
In a straight-up fight, the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Even
with its numerical advantage removed, the Empire would still squash the
Federation like a bug. Accept it. -Michael Wong

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

> Why not use Gentoo's prebuilt packages?
>
> # emerge --usepkg <whatever>

Now, so I can re-explain that to the Red Hat heads here.. :)

Where are the prebuilt packages? Is there a list of them? How would I
know if a package is/was available?

Just curious! :D

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:

> Using the ? sign? Setting other Lc's? Different fonts? Even java, debian tries
> to make it hard to costumize it (debian). It is very stable, in the end, but
> it is always a debian installation like it devs favored it, not what you
> really wanted...

Some of the Gentoo devs have similar attitude especially when it comes to
C(XX)FLAGS with some of the important packages.

I understand we have "strip-flags" for a reason but there should also be a
way to disable it.

For example I've built xorg, mozilla, glibc and perl with -0s and with
some other "forbidden" flags without having any problems even though all
these packages are claimed to have problems with these flags.

In fact I'm very tired of Gentoo devs babysitting users in this respect
and I'm sure there is a better, more flexiple and intelligent solution to
this (that the damned devs would not even consider, for sure).

This makes me feeling angry, sometimes even fooled...

--
T.G.

--
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On Saturday 18 September 2004 02:05, Tero Grundström wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> > Using the ? sign? Setting other Lc's? Different fonts? Even java, debian
> > tries to make it hard to costumize it (debian). It is very stable, in the
> > end, but it is always a debian installation like it devs favored it, not
> > what you really wanted...
>
> Some of the Gentoo devs have similar attitude especially when it comes to
> C(XX)FLAGS with some of the important packages.
>
> I understand we have "strip-flags" for a reason but there should also be a
> way to disable it.
>
> For example I've built xorg, mozilla, glibc and perl with -0s and with
> some other "forbidden" flags without having any problems even though all
> these packages are claimed to have problems with these flags.
>
> In fact I'm very tired of Gentoo devs babysitting users in this respect
> and I'm sure there is a better, more flexiple and intelligent solution to
> this (that the damned devs would not even consider, for sure).
>
> This makes me feeling angry, sometimes even fooled...

yeah, I understand your feeling. This is the result of people using too
aggressive or even stupid flags and complaining, that their system is
unstable. If you see someone using or advising stupid flags, hit him hart, he
is one of the culprits why there is strip-flags.
At least, there should be a warning, or better, a variable in /etc/make.conf
to disable strip-flags, or to force certain flags, even if strip-flags is
filtering the rest.

Glück Auf,
Volker

--
Conclusions
In a straight-up fight, the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Even
with its numerical advantage removed, the Empire would still squash the
Federation like a bug. Accept it. -Michael Wong

--
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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 02:12:00 +0200 "Hemmann, Volker Armin"
<volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:
| > In fact I'm very tired of Gentoo devs babysitting users in this
| > respect and I'm sure there is a better, more flexiple and
| > intelligent solution to this (that the damned devs would not even
| > consider, for sure).
| >
| yeah, I understand your feeling. This is the result of people using
| too aggressive or even stupid flags and complaining, that their system
| is unstable. If you see someone using or advising stupid flags, hit
| him hart, he is one of the culprits why there is strip-flags.
| At least, there should be a warning, or better, a variable in
| /etc/make.conf to disable strip-flags, or to force certain flags, even
| if strip-flags is filtering the rest.

There is a very easy way to do it. If you're smart enough to understand
the consequences of building packages with CFLAGS which are known to
break things, you're smart enough to figure it out.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm

begin quote
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:33:33 -0700
Jonathan Nichols <jnichols@pbp.net> wrote:

>
> > Why not use Gentoo's prebuilt packages?
> >
> > # emerge --usepkg <whatever>
>
> Now, so I can re-explain that to the Red Hat heads here.. :)
>
> Where are the prebuilt packages?

2004.2 GRP cd. or :
http://chinstrap.alternating.net/files/2004.2/grp/i686/

> Is there a list of them?
http://chinstrap.alternating.net/files/2004.2/grp/i686/


> How would I know if a package is/was available?

PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://chinstrap.alternating.net/files/2004.2/grp/i686"
export PORTAGE_BINHOST
emerge -vgup world



>
> Just curious! :D

You're welcome.

//Spider


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Tortured users / Laughing in pain
See Microsoft KB Article Q265230 for more information.
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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> There is a very easy way to do it. If you're smart enough to understand
> the consequences of building packages with CFLAGS which are known to
> break things, you're smart enough to figure it out.

But they *have not* broken anything over here! Are you smart enough to
understand that? So in my view most of these claims about defective flags
are plain lies.

If that wonder would ever happen, that I'd complain how my cflags broke
my system and even hold you responsible, you're free to break my legs or
something. It will never happen.


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T.G.

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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 03:59:18 +0300 (EEST) Tero Grundström
<tero@vuosaari.hai.fi> wrote:
| On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
|
| > There is a very easy way to do it. If you're smart enough to
| > understand the consequences of building packages with CFLAGS which
| > are known to break things, you're smart enough to figure it out.
|
| But they *have not* broken anything over here! Are you smart enough to
| understand that? So in my view most of these claims about defective
| flags are plain lies.

Well, chances are you've just never triggered the particular action that
causes things to break horribly. For example, at one point there was a
really stupid gcc bug with -funroll-all-loops that would make certain
string handling code barf horribly. Starting, say, vim would trigger it
every time, but things like apache would only break on certain requests.
We *know* that certain flags under certain circumstances create broken
code, hence the flag-o-matic. If you've been lucky enough not to hit
them, then good for you, but running a system that way is *really* not
advisable.

Of course, you can do it fairly easily if you really want to. Just like
you can easily run hard masked software which is full of nasty known
bugs on a broken kernel which is full of nasty known bugs on a broken
filesystem which is full of nasty broken bugs.

--
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Sparc, MIPS, Vim, Fluxbox)
Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm