this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The section about stability vs “bleeding edge” gives me the strong impression that the author doesn’t really know what they’re talking about and only parroting something they heard someone else say.
Thanks for reading through it and giving your thoughts!
Could you elaborate on the mistakes/oversights found in the "Stable vs bleeding edge" section?
IDK. Gentoo is considered stable, but fedora "leaning unstable"?
Anyway what is that whole un/stable supposed to mean anyway? All non-rolling distros try to be stable. What can break are third party repos and stuff you compiled yourself. With fedora that can "break" twice a year. With a rolling distro that can "break" on every updates
Honestly, I'm too unfamiliar with Gentoo to make a proper assessment on this. Though, even my (simple) understanding allows me to understand it as follows:
Which, I believe is what's alluded to here: "The update philosophy of a distro is generally not related to its release cadence, as you can have rolling release distros that are relatively stable (for example, Gentoo) and point release distros that are relatively bleeding edge (for example, Fedora)."
Is there any reason why you would deem Gentoo as not stable? If so, what?
For the sake of completeness, proper quotation would have been "leans bleeding"
I'll give you that the article is definitely not exhaustive and/or properly clarified. Perhaps for the sake of brevity, idk. Hence, I believe that this confusion is justified. However, again, I think the raised point is justifiable based on the following:
May I ask why you think Fedora does not lean towards unstable?
I agree it causes more confusion/conflation that it has any right to.
It depends on the used definition of "stable" 😅.
Sorry, I can't agree with you on this. Even if this is said in the context of non-rolling distros, my experiences with Fedora suggest otherwise. Granted, Fedora is sometimes referred to as semi-rolling release distro. So, perhaps it (and direct derivatives) are the exception.
Agreed (with earlier mentioned caveat*).
Agreed.
phew long answer. I wouldn't call Gentoo unstable. I was rather interested in why it's supposedly more stable then Fedora.
I just wrote from my limited experience. I never had something break on Fedora. I just updated a system from 35 to 41. The stuff that broke was something I compiled against old dependencies. (That's why I didn't update so long)
My Gentoo experience is >15y old. I had numerous incompatibilities, because I used the tools the system gave me. But sure that's on me if I cutomize my system with USE flags. And it's probably better now.
Yeah, lol. My apologies 😅. Thank for reading through all of that 😊!
Interesting. Within the last two years, we had issues with mesa and codecs; some devices couldn't even boot up. I'm glad to hear you haven't had any issues though. BTW, for the sake of completeness, I've been daily driving Fedora Silverblue for over two years now*.
LOL, my first version was version 35; which is a curious coincidence. With 41, do you mean Rawhide?
15 years is a long time 😅. Do you recall if Gentoo had dependency resolution back then?
Was on the phone and only quickly looked up the latest version. So I only updated to 40, not rawhide.
Sure Gentoo had dependency resolution. Does Gentoo still have use flags? Because that makes dependency resolution much hardere It's not enough to know the dependeicies, you also have to know all the use flags you dedend on. And if a maintainer adds a use flag for a feature you depend on, you have to add that dependency as well or people who disable that flag break with your package.
I'd be surprised if gentoo was considered stable, if you make heavy use of use-flags - if they still exist.
edit Maybe your "dependency resolution" is a new automatic thing that identifies dependencies including use flags automaticallt? It was automatidally done, only if the maintainers put the right stuff in their ebuilds.
AFAIK, it still does. Though I wonder if it still comes with a lot of added complexity that you note. I've yet to give Gentoo a good try. Therefore, you could be totally right with the following:
Regardless, it was an informative talk. Thank you for that! Have a nice day 😊!
@Mike1576218 @bsergay
I wanna try Gentoo-based Redcore on one of my other machines =^_^=
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=redcore
https://redcorelinux.org/
I suppose it's cool. MocaccionoOS is where my interests lie within the Gentoo derivatives. Granted, I'm a sucker for 'immutable' distros.
@bsergay nice, never heard of that distro
Yeah, it's pretty niche. Redcore Linux is definitely (relatively speaking) more mainstream.