Distro update methods [was RE: market continues to dive!]

[Michael]

> You seriously need to check out gentoo. It use a portage system, similar
> to the ports method used by FreeBSD. And if that doesn't suit you, you
> should check out FreeBSD. I didn't like it when I tried it, but it was a
> long time ago. But many people do like it. It is a good OS, with a good
> updating methodology. I really wish Linux had one, other than portage.
> Don't get me wrong, I really like portage, but Linux needs one that can
> do the same thing for compiled packages. So if you want to make your own
> please take the portage system as your base. ;')

Gentoo looks promising but it seems to harsh for my old P120 type boxes so
I guess I agree it needs some work in the way of binary packages. Most of
my complaints are in the area of what a pain it is to make deb or rpm
packages that properly adjust themselves after relevant software is
installed. For example if I have a PHP package installed already but add a
expat package it doesn't automaticlly ask if I want to reload the PHP
package with XML support turned on.

I've used FreeBSD and it's okay but not really better than Linux (in some
ways it is.. in some ways it's not..) so I typically don't use it at home
as I dislike the BSD license.