Dagmar wrote:

There's a simple solution to this. Stop using Gentoo, knucklehead. ...or Debian for that matter. You waive all rights to complain about having to administer the machine yourself when you install a distribution designed to make you administer the machine yourself.

If you don't want the hassle of dealing with the trivia of package upgrades, use one of the distributions that gives you a point-and-grunt upgrader (like Mandriva) and be satisfied with the way they put their binaries together.

I found an even easier solution in the form of a PowerBook. I'm not here to start an OS war. I used Linux exclusively for my home systems for probably 7 years. Up until the point I stopped, in 2003 or 4, I'd tried every major distro and a number of minor ones. I don't regret it, I learned a lot, but I also came to the realization that the OS was getting in the way of the things I wanted to do, rather than ecouraging me to do them. That's not it's fault... there's a reason for having both a hammer and a screwdriver, and as one tool among many, I'm happy to have Linux for those situations to which it is best suited. In fact, Linux has fragmented in wonderful ways, so I can also decide if my screwdriver is gonna be Philips, Flat, Hex, Torx, and wether it's manual or electric -- that's a really useful toolset.

Nonetheless, for daily use, my choice was to get a system that gets the hell out of my way when I want to get some work done, but gives me powerful tools for when I want to tinker. I paid a premium for it that not everyone sees as worth it, and that's fine too.

I'm glad there are Mandrakes and Red Hats that people find usable and efficient, and I may find myself using them again someday, but not just now.

RE: The Development Abstraction Layer - Joel on Software