Re: [PLUG] Source-Based Distros

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 8:32 PM, Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:
> I'm getting a little frustrated with Gentoo.  I've been running the unstable branch, and it's - well - UNSTABLE!  <wah wah wah!>
>

And you haven't even gotten next week's udev upgrade yet!

Well, it won't quench your thirst for something different, but you
could always switch to stable.  That is a little tricky if you don't
want to do what amounts to a near-reinstall.

>
> My other potential choices seem to be Lunar Linux, Sorcerer, and Source Mage.  Has anybody tried any of these?
>

No, but you're going to struggle to find source-based linux distros
that are even half as well-supported as Gentoo.  FreeBSD isn't a bad
suggestion but it is going a different direction.  If you want to
break yourself into BSD you could always run Gentoo FreeBSD.  :)

Another option is other Gentoo-based linux distros like Sabayon, or
Exherbo.  At least with Exherbo if you point out that you don't like
something they'll be more vocal in telling you how you're wrong, or at
least innocently idiotic.  :)

Oh, and if you want to try something else that is exotic but still
Gentoo-based you could mess around with Prefix or Hardened.  The
former is pretty neat and lets you run Gentoo on just about anything
that provides a POSIX environment including Windows and OSX, and it
doesn't need a chroot to work (so your apps aren't jailed) - that is a
trick I haven't seen on any other distros unless they were
built-from-scratch for this like Cygwin/etc.  Hardened is actually
somewhat popular with hosting providers as it is supposed to be VERY
secure and compartmentalized - generally beyond what most distros
offer.

Good luck with whatever you end up trying.  Gentoo users tend to be
tinkerers, and so it isn't surprising that they tend to want to keep
tinkering on.  Watch out, though, because they often find their way
back...

Rich
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