It's not you Gentoo, it's me. I'm just not good enough.
I've been trying to like Gentoo for over four years, ever since I installed it on my primary laptop. I love the idea of having the fine-tuned control that Gentoo offers, and I love the idea that everything I install is tailored to my specific system.
But despite my best intentions I have not mastered it - in fact I barely feel like I understand it. When I remember to update it a couple times a week everything is pretty smooth. Go much longer than that and all bets are off. If I go on a long vacation I dread coming back to a Gentoo update. I just don't have the discipline to keep up.
Lately portage has been scolding me because some random packages are trying to install different versions of openssl. I've been ignoring it for weeks while I muster the courage to solve it.
And in my experience this kind of problem is super common. Either I'm pulling multiple versions of a package into the same slot, or I'm trying to merge a masked package, or some package is trying to put files in a place it doesn't own, or who knows...
Every time I try to solve one of these issues it's like I'm starting from scratch. I read manpages, online docs, bug trackers. I try various incantations of emerge flags. And eventually I show up the IRC channel with my tail between my legs.
Fortunately, the IRC community is extremely knowledgeable and can usually fix my problem in no time. But I hate having to ask for help, and I never seem to get closer to solving them myself.
The other major issue I have is convenience: it sometimes takes so long to install a new package. I get it - that's what you expect with a source-based distro. But man I did not understand just how much compiling time I'd need. Krita releases a new patch version? There's a couple hours with my laptop fans blasting. My laptop has easily spent 10x or 50x the time compiling Krita vs actually running it! And that's just one random program; god help you if you want Firefox on the same machine.
Anyway, on my next computer I'll probably install Arch.
"But despite my best intentions I have not mastered it - in fact I barely feel like I understand it. When I remember to update it a couple times a week everything is pretty smooth. Go much longer than that and all bets are off. ... I just don't have the discipline to keep up."
You are so close to enlightenment! When you can repair a broken Gentoo box (which is its default state), whilst still providing service, you are a man my son (pronoun assumption - soz!)
I do run Arch on all my personal stuff these days (DebIan n Ubuntu at work and others as required) but Gentoo was my first real love and it taught me to never fear a completely broken Linux box. Provided the broken bit is not screwed hardware then Gentoo can survive nearly anything.
I have a box - a VM running on esxi in my attic that got a bit behind. By bit, I mean 2013ish - I've just checked out /etc/kernels to get an idea. You can use git to make /usr/portage go back in time and then gradually update your box to now. It's not something that I recommend for the impatient but you can do it. The worst bit was dealing with things like Let's Encrypt CA changes and finding old packages. I often had to download them manually and slap them in the right place.
You complain about compilation times but back in the day I had a laptop that I left running on a glass table for over a week (worried about heat) cranking through what would eventually become @world. From memory, it was for the GCC 3 -> 4 upgrade and the advice at the time was compile everything until your eyes bleed and then do it again. Nowadays an ABI change is handled rather better and with better advice.
The Gentoo wiki is a very decent repository of info (I wrote some of it, and probably ought to revisit and update my offerings).
The contrast with other approaches to software is striking when it comes to docs n that. I've recently "solved" an MS Outlook MAPI to Exchange snag that might have been easier to diagnose if I had access to the source or logs that weren't solely designed for people with access to source code.
Do stick with it and do ask for help. You are very close ...
Arch is also rolling update, and has no trivial chance to break when upgrading, I learned this painfully a few years ago. switched to Ubuntu, which is boring but stable.
I've been trying to like Gentoo for over four years, ever since I installed it on my primary laptop. I love the idea of having the fine-tuned control that Gentoo offers, and I love the idea that everything I install is tailored to my specific system.
But despite my best intentions I have not mastered it - in fact I barely feel like I understand it. When I remember to update it a couple times a week everything is pretty smooth. Go much longer than that and all bets are off. If I go on a long vacation I dread coming back to a Gentoo update. I just don't have the discipline to keep up.
Lately portage has been scolding me because some random packages are trying to install different versions of openssl. I've been ignoring it for weeks while I muster the courage to solve it.
And in my experience this kind of problem is super common. Either I'm pulling multiple versions of a package into the same slot, or I'm trying to merge a masked package, or some package is trying to put files in a place it doesn't own, or who knows...
Every time I try to solve one of these issues it's like I'm starting from scratch. I read manpages, online docs, bug trackers. I try various incantations of emerge flags. And eventually I show up the IRC channel with my tail between my legs.
Fortunately, the IRC community is extremely knowledgeable and can usually fix my problem in no time. But I hate having to ask for help, and I never seem to get closer to solving them myself.
The other major issue I have is convenience: it sometimes takes so long to install a new package. I get it - that's what you expect with a source-based distro. But man I did not understand just how much compiling time I'd need. Krita releases a new patch version? There's a couple hours with my laptop fans blasting. My laptop has easily spent 10x or 50x the time compiling Krita vs actually running it! And that's just one random program; god help you if you want Firefox on the same machine.
Anyway, on my next computer I'll probably install Arch.