gentoo in my opinion isn't strong because of its package handling. If you ask me, the package handling is weak in many respects - I've been using gentoo for months, and still don't know how to get a listing of what packages I have installed (aside from grabbing it out of the emerge log). What I think makes gentoo so strong is the fact that it automates the process of fetching and building from source whatever package you want, applying any custom build tags you want. This way you can be sure to get the package optimized for your system (or at least, what you *think* is optimized for your system - GCC will happily compile with whatever flags you pass, whether it's good for you or not). It also makes uninstalling packages a breeze, as well as updating the global system. And I've *never* had the problems I've had with some others (like BSD's package system) where I go to grab a package and it's mysteriously gone.

*shrugs* It's all a matter of preference. In my opinion, the only thing that allows more customization than Gentoo is a LFS system. And only then because, well, you're building from even less of a starting point than Gentoo gives you. :-)

(which, anyone that thinks a gentoo install was strange or difficult should've been around for the early debian releases. I know experienced sysadmins who still haven't grown back all the hair they pulled out installing early debian.)

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Original post by andrewk3652 gentoo in my opinion isn't strong because of its package handling. If you ask me, the package handling is weak in many respects - I've been using gentoo for months, and still don't know how to get a listing of what packages I have installed (aside from grabbing it out of the emerge log).

You can see what packages are installed because you specifically asked for them by looking in /var/lib/portage/world, and you can find out what packages you have installed by doing emerge -e world (there are other ways, but I just got up and that way takes much less thought)

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Original post by Mayrel Linux is not an operating system. Linux is a kernel. Linux is not POSIX compliant, because POSIX says nothing about how kernels should behave, or even that kernels need to exist.

Well.....sort of. but not really.

If you dig deep within the posix standard, behavior is specified which could only result if the kernel supported the posix standard (or supported all the posix features on which a posix interface could be built) in that area. High-precision clocking and real-time standards come to mind. Threading also, but that is typically implemented in the kernel for performance reasons, not out of necessity.

So...does a kernel make up a posix system? No. Can a kernel play a crucial part in making a system posix compliant (to some posix standard)? Yes.

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Original post by metal leper You can see what packages are installed because you specifically asked for them by looking in /var/lib/portage/world, and you can find out what packages you have installed by doing emerge -e world (there are other ways, but I just got up and that way takes much less thought)

Ah. Thanks.

(I knew what packages I had manually installed, what I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up with was some of the requisite packages that got built upon installing some package.)

For more information on packages installed on a Gentoo system, see qpkg. You might find the output of qpkg -I interesting.

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Original post by etothex Quote: Original post by Mayrel Linux is not an operating system. Linux is a kernel. Linux is not POSIX compliant, because POSIX says nothing about how kernels should behave, or even that kernels need to exist. Well.....sort of. but not really. If you dig deep within the posix standard, behavior is specified which could only result if the kernel supported the posix standard (or supported all the posix features on which a posix interface could be built) in that area. High-precision clocking and real-time standards come to mind. Threading also, but that is typically implemented in the kernel for performance reasons, not out of necessity. So...does a kernel make up a posix system? No. Can a kernel play a crucial part in making a system posix compliant (to some posix standard)? Yes.

The rules of tennis don't explicitly state that players must have hearts. That's because they don't; it is legal for a robot to play tennis. But it's obvious that if the players are human, they'll need to have hearts.

Similarly, the POSIX standard doesn't require that there be a kernel that provides threading. It only requires that threading be present, and in a system where the kernel is responsible for scheduling processor use, that obviously means that the kernel must support threading.

That doesn't mean that the kernel itself is 'POSIX compliant', any more than the heart of a human tennis player can be said to be compliant with the rules of tennis.

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Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by Mayrel ...the power of Gentoo is that I can install any package in the Gentoo package database with a single instruction. You're saying that the power of an operating system lies in the ability to install applications easily? Or am I reading way to much into this statement (taking it out of context, because you really mean "the power of Gentoo as a *nix")?

I was a little uncomfortable with that sentence when I wrote it. Neither interpretation is exactly correct.

Part of the power of an operating system lies in the ability to install applications easily. Which is to say: given a choice between two otherwise equivalent operating systems, I consider one in which installing applications is easier to be the superior of the two.

I consider Gentoo to be superior to other Linux distributions I've used because of the ease of installing applications. It is equivalent to other distributions in other respects, so the package manager is the only basis for comparison.

That is, of course, my opinion.

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Original post by Mayrel I was a little uncomfortable with that sentence when I wrote it. Neither interpretation is exactly correct. Part of the power of an operating system lies in the ability to install applications easily. Which is to say: given a choice between two otherwise equivalent operating systems, I consider one in which installing applications is easier to be the superior of the two. I consider Gentoo to be superior to other Linux distributions I've used because of the ease of installing applications. It is equivalent to other distributions in other respects, so the package manager is the only basis for comparison. That is, of course, my opinion.

Thanks for clearing that up.

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Original post by Miserable For more information on packages installed on a Gentoo system, see qpkg. You might find the output of qpkg -I interesting.

Yeh that's a much better way (faster and potentially more reliable)