Gentoo Cancels 2008.1, Plans New Future

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Gentoo Cancels 2008.1, Plans New Future

There was no Gentoo 2007.1 release that made it out last year, and we now know for sure that there will be no Gentoo 2008.1 release this year. The Gentoo Release Engineering Team has canceled the Gentoo 2008.1 release that would have otherwise been expected in the next three months...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjczOQ

[yoshi314]

the thing about gentoo is - you don't really need an install cd/dvd. just any livecd that works on your pc and a stage file.

and weekly snapshots from funtoo.org are actually quite good.

official gentoo releases are really for people who either don't put much trust into weekly snapshots or gentoo-purists that really don't feel like doing it the "gentoo way" without the official install media and official stages.

[alchark]

I suggest that Phoronix had rather refrain from posting about things that they are not quite familiar with. That should be better than sounding ridiculous with remarks like the one in the last paragraph (especially the "once popular" part). The authors' personal love towards Ubuntu should not result in other distributions being displayed as inferior, as they exist for a reason and definitely have own merits (which is ESPECIALLY true for Gentoo). A Linux distribution's possible merits are not limited to shiny point-to-click installers and precompliled binary releases.

[Fixxer_Linux]

official gentoo releases are really for people who either don't put much trust into weekly snapshots or gentoo-purists that really don't feel like doing it the "gentoo way" without the official install media and official stages.

As I used to do with my Gentoo...

In fact, I never followed the weekly snapshot. For 2 reasons : it's not written in the official documentation (the installation documentation, but it's probably written elsewhere in the documentation or in the wiki) that you can use the weekly release and how to do that. It's perhaps written, but I have not seen where.
The second is that I don't care !
I want Gentoo to offer me some latest software for Firefox and latest binary blobs for my gfx card, but mainly, I'm waiting from Gentoo : stability, ease of choosing the options of installation through use flags and upgradability without having the reinstall from scratch.

And for that, I've never seen a better distro, but that's true I never gave a try to Debian...

[yoshi314]

And for that, I've never seen a better distro, but that's true I never gave a try to Debian...

i did. if i had tried it before gentoo, i might like it.

it's not written in the official documentation (the installation documentation, but it's probably written elsewhere in the documentation or in the wiki) that you can use the weekly release and how to do that.

they didn't exist at that point (the weeklies). but they are pretty much identical to official stages. you can follow the exact same procedure as with the official ones to set up your system.

the two differences between official snapshots and weeklies are:
- official is more tested
- weekly snapshot contains more up-to-date software, but it's generated in the exact same manner as the official stage (via catalyst tool). so you save yourself some time when installing, because you have less updates at the beginning.

you use them both in exactly the same manner.

[Forge]

I've been installing from a ~amd64 chroot for several years now. I haven't used an official Gentoo CD as anything but a rescue boot since some time in 2006.

Even Ubuntu seems to be helping, since the recent LiveCDs have two options; 'Install Ubuntu' which boots the GUI and the GUI installer, and 'Run Ubuntu without changing your system' which gives me a nice full featured GUI to sit and install Gentoo from.

[audir8]

Timely installcds would be greatly appreciated, especially since they're small. I don't feel like downloading 4.4GB or 700MB if I run into some grub problem. It also makes mad when some huge livecd I did download doesn't have things like console web browser, grub, gparted or gcc ready to use, though I'm sure some gentoo install cds don't have the later either.

[jeffro-tull]

I never saw the point of them doing "official" releases anyway. The last couple times I installed Gentoo, I just used a Kubuntu live CD to do a "proper" net install.

Now that they're not focusing on twice a year live CD's that won't install properly anyway, maybe the devs can help get some official KDE 4.1 ebuilds in the tree.

[Vighy]

I've been installing from a ~amd64 chroot for several years now. I haven't used an official Gentoo CD as anything but a rescue boot since some time in 2006.

Even Ubuntu seems to be helping, since the recent LiveCDs have two options; 'Install Ubuntu' which boots the GUI and the GUI installer, and 'Run Ubuntu without changing your system' which gives me a nice full featured GUI to sit and install Gentoo from.

You said it before me! argh!

[Naib]

... Typical attitude to Gentoo from Phoronix.

or at least the headline is a bit "doom and gloom"

Gentoo never should have gone to the naming releases on a yearly basis anyway - the number of threads on f.g.o that are like "it is july 2007, where is Gentoo-2007.1 ???" exp since such releases are meaningless for gentoo

The situation was complicated when a few upstream core packages went and broke their ABI - expat was a bitch, exp since it was then dormant in the stage tarballs, but such things are a price to pay for a src-based distro

Automating stage tarball is a good thing (DRobbin's funtoo stageshas that atm already) and well a LiveCD is ... meh, a nicety but the sysrescueCD is more useful to have around/use to install gentoo (I have even installed Gentoo from an Archlinux installCD - there isn't alot needed from a linux liveCD to install GEntoo)


So yet again some artical by ppl that just don't get gentoo or don't like it, at least it aint as bad as distrowatch's recent one where they go on how gentoo is dying because "SHOCK HORROR" the gentoo system finally went and formalised the retirement of 400dev's - dev's that have all but been retired for months/years... AND then go and get the number of new dev's wrong...


there is alot of hate towards gentoo, mostly by ppl that don't get it or ppl that think it is cool to have a rant at gentoo cause others do... just the typical lack of independent thought