Re: [linux-audio-user] amd64 - distro questions...

On 11/21/05, Piotr Pruszczak <p.pruszczak(a)pro.onet.pl> wrote: I would say yes, but I never liked Debian; I always thought it had a pretty hideous package setup even if it is better than some competition like RPM. You will dig the fact that Gentoo will download and install all dependancies, but something you didn't have before is you have some say in what those dependencies are. Since 99% of the packages are built from source you can configure features in or out depending on your needs. No binary package system offers this. Most programs have ebuilds and are thus "part" of the Gentoo distribution. I rarely find something that doesn't have a package or has a package significantly out of date. Also, especially beneficial to the AMD64 user like me, the gentoo package system flags packages that work, don't work, or are untested. This is nice because it keeps you from updating a package with something that is known to break on your architecture. I don't know what the DSSI thing is. I have RT in the .14 kernel and the only problem I am having is software hibernation (suspend to disk) crashes somewhere in the RT functions. Nobody but a laptop user like me cares about this a great deal. I used to use Slackware because I never enjoyed the binary package systems offered by the other distros. When I bought an AMD64 I could no longer use Slackware and get the benefits of the new system. I tried Gentoo and have never looked back...I use it everywhere now. It is, IMHO, the best distro out there. You will run into things that don't work as well on the AMD64. Flash doesn't work at all and you need a 32 bit version of firefox to view these websites. Gentoo makes this really easy to set up. I do have issues with QSynth and its underlying program (forget its name). Last I tried it did manage to make some scratching noises but I have never gotten it to work. Newer versions than 3 months or so might do better. That's about it, most other shit works great. With a mix of having mostly 64 bit programs, a kernel that has 32 bit entry functions, and the 32 bit compat libraries and some 32 bit programs is a great way of doing things. Most stuff is 64 and then things that don't work or work oddly, like flash or openoffice, can be installed as 32 bit programs and run as normal - you never notice the diff.