Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

["J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 12:20 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Seriously, give Gentoo portage a try. There is a sane package
>> management system for Linux.
>
> if you don't upgrade in lock step you will get into dependency hell.
> portage is now exactly what its developers railed against — rpm
> dependency hell.  portage just kicks the can down the street a bit.

I didn't upgrade for 6 months because of the e2fsprogs problem, but
when I finally did, I didn't have any problems across 190 packages.

>
> in fact, an upgraded system will differ significantly from a fresh install
> even after an emerge world.
>
> portage is just broken.

In many ways, yes, but it is less broken than apt or rpm. The only way
it could be less broken is by not caring about dependencies, but then
you're left with something like Arch, where you *really* have to know
what you're doing.

Of course, 90% of this could be solved by the elimination of shared
libraries, but oh well.

>
> unfortunately, i don't know of any alternatives that will allow me
> and not rh or somebody else to decided if i am going to run ldap
> or whatever.

If you want something that gives you freedom from "standard packaging"
and is less of a nanny than portage, either LFS or Arch are your best
bet.