Gentoo patches [was Re: [CLUE-Tech] Escape from RH 8.0]

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sun, 02 Mar 2003 22:40:52 -0700
David Anselmi <anselmi at americanisp.net> wrote:

> Collins wrote:
> [...]
> > My brief experiance with Debian led me to believe that the bootscripts
> > and placement of files in /etc were much more difficult to understand
> > with Debian than either RH or gentoo.  I could never seem to figure
> > out how it all worked on Debian.
> 
> The files in /etc are either config files for standard software or 
> system config files used by the boot scripts.  For the first it ought to
> be reasonably obvious and for the second I read the boot scripts to see 
> how they do things and that points out what is where in /etc.  I've done
> 
> the same (in less depth) with Red Hat.
> 
> With Debian, once I've figured out where the conf file is I'm usually 
> done.  With Red Hat I haven't learned anything about their whizbang 
> configurator.  I expect I'll learn some Red Hat (starting next week for 
> a class, actually) because of their market share.  I won't like the 
> tools they provide that get in my way, but they've adopted the "know 
> nothing" sysadmin model of Windows.  "Want to run samba?  Don't bother 
> learning about netbios and wins, just point and click."

SSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssss! ;-) I think someone in RTP just got scorched.

I suspect that once you get used to a particular distro, the others will
seem strange, to the extent they diverge. I've mostly ignored RH's
whizbang configurator gizmos, and just edit the files myself. It does mean
sometimes slogging through a few scripts to see what they're doing.
Sometimes, I fire up their tool, and then use lsof to see what's it's
using, although that doesn't always work, if the tool doesn't keep the
files open while you're pushing its buttons.

jed
-- 
I wouldn't even think about bribing a rottweiler with a steak that
didn't weigh more than I do. -- Jason Earl