On Tuesday 26 October 2004 09:54, Michael Pyne wrote:
>
> Well in my experience new packages hit Portage soon after an upstream
> release. Even when Gentoo is slacking in that department, people with
> experience on Gentoo know that it is typically as simple as copying the
> ebuild file and bumping the version number.  Although it may take a bit of
> time to compile, Gentoo users typically can get a head start on the
> process, so that evens things out a little.
>
> But please, please, please don't exaggerate.  I once tried to use Gentoo on
> a laptop with 64 MB of RAM and a AMD K6-2 with hardly any cache (although
> it was 550 MHz IIRC).  Anyways, I didn't try compiling KDE, but compiling
> and installing XFree86 "only" took about 8-10 hours on that.  Although
> hardly a speed record, it's not "3 days".
>

Just as a data point XFree86, KDE and all their dependencies take about two 
days to compile using FreeBSD's ports system on a Duron 1300 with 640 meg of 
RAM. Xorg and KDE takes almost three on a PII-350 with 256M of RAM.

>
> Maybe it's just me, but I just can't understand the people who complain
> about having to compile software.  If you managed to survive through
> yesterday without foo-x.y+1, I think you'd be able to manage another hour
> (or even, God forbid, a day).  

Yes, but it's generaly a *bad* idea to update something like KDE while it's 
running. I've ended up with some pretty odd stuff doing that. I now upgrade X 
first and then upgrade KDE and use Fvwm while KDE is installing.

> If you really must have the latest and greatest *NOW*, then you'll usually
> end up compiling from source anyways, which is *exactly* what you'd be
> doing under Gentoo.
>
> Regards,
>  - Michael Pyne

-- 
"We all enter this world in the same way: naked, screaming,
 and soaked in blood. But if you live your life right, that kind
 of thing doesn't have to stop there." -- Dana Gould
 
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