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Yes, Gentoo is an excellent server meta-distribution. In fact, only the BSDs come close with their ports system.
Most people don't know of the advanced package manager that is portage. I can compile the whole environment on a workstation, export the package dir over NFS, and install -- get this -- BINARY, yes -- BINARY packages on the server. These packages can be TESTED on the build environment as well. Holy shit!
FWIW Easynews.com is almost 100% Gentoo servers, as are a few other businesses. Most folks think or expect Gentoo to be or fit one mold but it really doesn't. It scales from the CF router in my closet to the servers in my rack.
You know, RPM can do everything Portage can do, but better and faster, and it also has really good binary support.
All the people who defend Portage like it's some sort of magical advanced package management system really don't have a lot of experience with actually doing advanced things.
Keeping a gentoo system stable is a non-issue. Just RTFM and follow it.
It's also easy to break. Install all kinds of unstable software, and do emerge -uDN world on daily basis. That'll do the trick.
You don't have to be leet to make it stable. Just use common sense (that however may of course be leet in it self :p )





Member since:
2007-07-10
but you're the guy who's running gentoo on a server, why should we trust you?
(the flaw in this argument lies in the possibility that kev009 is so leet that he keeps a gentoo server completely stable.)
(otherwise it is a pretty valid argument.)