Radeon HD 5850 with Radeon OSS success

[pingufunkybeat]

Or you could switch to a distro which packages the drivers.

Or you could complain on an internet forum.

I'm going to play some open arena, you keep complaining here, let's see who has more fun

[L33F3R]

You waiting for the next next release, at least, which I believe is code named Orgasmic Octipus. Or was that Horny Hippo?

Its Orgasmic Octopus btw.

[Mr James]

Its Orgasmic Octopus btw.

Whoops. "I" is next to "O".


Also, I am not full of hate, man. I'm just saying it will be a while till we get a tested, bug-free version of the whole driver stack in the repos. GIT snapshots are buggy as hell.

[crazycheese]

Debian Squeeze. About to be declared the new stable release. Debian Stable is just that good. Gentoo people are ricers. They see themselfs as some sort of secret society.

So, when you do not agree with official Debian line on current GCC version used, you gonna do ... what?

Gentoo is a tool, a brilliant multi-functional tool.
If you take a ricer and give him gentoo, he will get ricer linux.
If you take yourself and install gentoo, you will get your linux.

If you take Debian, you get Debian. If you agree with Debian, you don't need Gentoo. Gentoo is for people that value its features, drawbacks derived from that features.

[Mr James]

So, when you do not agree with official Debian line on current GCC version used, you gonna do ... what?

Go Debian Sid...upgrade and mix and match whatever.

Gentoo is a tool, a brilliant multi-functional tool.
If you take a ricer and give him gentoo, he will get ricer linux.
If you take yourself and install gentoo, you will get your linux.

If you take Debian, you get Debian. If you agree with Debian, you don't need Gentoo. Gentoo is for people that value its features, drawbacks derived from that features.

Man, you got to be into bondage pr0n to use Gentoo.

To reap the benifits of Gentoo you got to step through the code, figure out what the sweet spot of compilation flags for your setup is, and then compile EVERYTHING. Come upgrade time, loop.
I mean I can see it as a valuable learning experience, but to be a my main distro.........I'm not that leet.

[rohcQaH]

Mr James,

like many, you misunderstand the concept of gentoo. Compiling things on your own is not about ricing your compile flags to get the last bits of performance - in fact, handcrafted binaries with PGO are often faster.

It's about tailoring your system to your needs.

I don't want to use LVM? USE="-lvm" and it's gone from my system.
I want to use some gnome apps on a KDE desktop without pulling in too many dependencies? USE="-gnome -eds".
Can we please drop all those useless sound demons from my system, because my alsa works just fine? USE="-pulseaudio -esd -arts"
I want to use Seamonkey, but don't need the buildin chat client? USE="-chatzilla".
I want to have a local php installation with exactly the modules I can use on the production server? USE flag, again.
I need true and working debugging symbols for my whole system because I tend to generate lots of stacktraces? FEATURES="splitdebug"
I really don't need ancients HID drivers in my xorg? INPUT_DEVICES="evdev -keyboard -mouse"
My language of choice is english, but I want german support to be included just in case? But I don't want to waste space and memory on french? LINGUAS="en en_GB de"
I need a clean way to install a custom xf86-video-ati without overwriting system files or voiding my package manager's dependency checks? echo 'x11-driver/xf86-video-ati' >>/etc/portage/package.provided
I want to apply a patch to some software without getting my binaries from some weird, completely untrustable PPA? Copy patch, add 1 line to the correct file, reinstall package, there it is!
I suddenly feel like swapping my linux kernel for *BSD? Possible with gentoo.

Additionally, as a developer, I like my software to come with all required headers by default.

Also, don't underestimate the potential for embedded systems. Cross-compiling a minimal system with just the required features, then copying it (sans gcc/headers/...) to another system is a use case that's pretty easy with gentoo. Catching compile errors before botching your system with an untested binary is a good thing, too.


I realize that some of these things can be done in other package managers by splitting a package into dozends of smaller packages (one for each php module, a debug package for each containing symbols, a language package for each, ..), but there are limits to that.
Gentoo is just a clean approach if you need a highly customizable system. You may use gentoo because you need the customization, you may use gentoo because you just like the customization, because you like to tinker with stuff, or you may use it because your computer room gets too cold during winter. Gentoo has its advantages and its drawbacks. If someone understands both and considers it a good choice, there's nothing wrong with that.

[elanthis]

I don't want to use LVM? USE="-lvm" and it's gone from my system.
I want to use some gnome apps on a KDE desktop without pulling in too many dependencies? USE="-gnome -eds".
Can we please drop all those useless sound demons from my system, because my alsa works just fine? USE="-pulseaudio -esd -arts"

Want to spend less time working for your computer and more time out with your girlfriend? USE="-gentoo"

[crazycheese]

Go Debian Sid...upgrade and mix and match whatever.

This is completely unrelated to my question.
In Sid, as in any Debian branch, the only efficient way to "disagree" is to pin the package. It will work for some time.
The other way, is to turn your system into source based, with a package manager not designed for source.

Man, you got to be into bondage pr0n to use Gentoo.

To reap the benifits of Gentoo you got to step through the code, figure out what the sweet spot of compilation flags for your setup is, and then compile EVERYTHING. Come upgrade time, loop.
I mean I can see it as a valuable learning experience, but to be a my main distro.........I'm not that leet.

No, I'm into the choices.
I love the system, that is not monotone with one decision to apply to everybody, but for the system which has very efficient mechanism of integrating various individual solutions efficiently.
The only thing that you should know when using Gentoo is Linux ecosystem.
I have found Gentoo way more usable and simple than Archlinux, and way more flexible than Debian. Of course, if I to install an OS for (wishing to stay) unexperienced person, Gentoo will be very bad choice.
Just as I mentioned, configurability and flexibility comes at a price of knowing which path to follow. And following it blindly(by default), although possible, will provide no benefit - only leave with drawbacks. Somebody prefer automatic transmission, somebody like manual switching. And somebody like to walk.

[crazycheese]

Want to spend less time working for your computer and more time out with your girlfriend? USE="-gentoo"

Incorrect, that would be: rm -rf /

[crazycheese]

Man, you got to be into bondage pr0n to use Gentoo.

To reap the benifits of Gentoo you got to step through the code, figure out what the sweet spot of compilation flags for your setup is, and then compile EVERYTHING. Come upgrade time, loop.
I mean I can see it as a valuable learning experience, but to be a my main distro.........I'm not that leet.

I will go a bit more detailed:
- you don't need to go through the code. The USE flags are displayed by emerge or eix. Their meaning can be found in corresponding ebuild or on internet. Many ebuilds use own CFLAGS overriding your choice for purpose of better optimization. There is a useflag to prevent this behavior.
- neither emerge, nor paludis recompile EVERYTHING. They automatically recompile only what is needed to be recompiled. It is also not necessary a foreground process. Its true, that sometimes you need to call revdep to rebuild everything depending upon changed package, and you will be informed to do so. Again with Ubuntu, segfaults were not uncommon.
- the world package set is unique,as in valuable, in Gentoo. You will never get any package lost over the time, just because package manager silently decided to do so. You have very differentiated list of what you want and everything else is a dynamic dependency.