From: Jacob Quinn Shenker <jqshenker@...>
Date: 2005-11-19T21:22:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Best OS for Ruby Dev/Best OS for Ruby Hosting

On 11/19/05, Edwin van Leeuwen <edder@tkwsping.nl> wrote:> jqshenker wrote:> > I'd recommend staying away from Gentoo: I prefer> > source-based OSs, but Gentoo just breaks too often for it to be worth> > it. Also, Gentoo users are on the whole jerkyer and less helpful than> > normal people.>> I can't help to defend gentoo here a bit. I've been using gentoo for two> years now and in my experience it doesn't break often, but YMMV. The> main pro about gentoo is its users and support. The forums are just> amazing and people are generally very helpful. I know some people who> use other distros, but they often first turn to the gentoo forums for> help etc. Of course I have no experience with gentoo people in> mailinglists and irc. They may all be jerks there.>> (Sorry couldn't help but defend them a little :))
That's perfectly ok!
I actually am using Gentoo on two of my boxes (have been for about ayear, pending a move to FreeBSD which will happen Any Day Now ;), andthey've worked great for the most part. The thing that bugs me is thatevery so often they go, "Oh, let's rearrange the dev-php/* packages"."Oh, there apache config files need moving". Etc. Sure, change for thebetter is ok, but I've just had to deal with too many problemsstemming from these rough transitions. Sometimes packages are markedstable that definitely shouldn't have been (the software itself israrely at fault-it's the Portage build script/ebuild). Of course, I'mrunning amd64 where breakage is much more common unfortunately. Mysecondary, x86 box has had far less trouble.
The forums (I forgot to mention) are really good. The IRC channel, notso much! :-P Stay away, and do yourself a favor. That said, FreeBSDalso has a good community and many of the benefits of Gentoo, withfewer problems. And they have a new logo! This is only my experience,but you can't go wrong with either one. It's just that FreeBSD is"right-er" for me ;-) Before you commit to anything, find a spare boxand install as many OSs as you can in a week. Besides a good learningexperience with respect to *nix administration, you can try each inturn and see how you like it. It comes down to a personal preference,often.
Jacob
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