Gubuntu (Portage in Ubuntu) :)

[sunmicroman]

When I tried Gentoo 2 years ago, portage only checked dependencies upon
install, but /not/ uninstall. Meaning that it was perfectly possible
to
ruin a system be removing the wrong package. Has this changed since?

Try it currently. A lot can change in 2 years, especially with a Linux
Distro :) 



Debian has ca. 15,000 packages in Sarge. I doubt Gentoo has as many
(couldn't find a number though), and in any case has not ten times
that. 

Clearly I was exaggerating. But if you look in the Gentoo respository
you'll find just about any software that can be compiled to run on a
Linux platform. Not just a Debian based distro.


You can have the same thing if you run Hoary (or later Ubuntu
development branches). In fact, Hoary seems to be updated several
times
a day.
Note that you can expect approximately the same stability from both:
things _will break if packages are distributed without intensive
testing.
Most users can't or don't want to put up with that, and it is the
distro's responsibility to assure stability. If a distro does that, it
can't update daily. It's a trade-off really. 
Users who can cope with distros that update daily have a wide choice
(Debian Sid, Ubuntu Hoary, and others), not just Gentoo

Speaking of stability, Gentoo has a nice little rating system they give
to the software in their repository. They put a little "bug" symbol by
the software if it isn't completely stable. So it's up to the user to
take the chance if they are interested. 



I would rather Ubuntu stays sane


Who said anything about sanity? Just wanting to make what has
universally been the "bain" of Linux for years a lot better.

This isn't a Ubuntu vs Gentoo reply whatsoever (or vs any other for
that matter. If it was I would have -a lot- more to say on the subject
but am not interested in getting into a debate here, no matter how
"stimulating" it may be). I actually like Ubuntu and am using it on my
laptop as I type this response. Just an observation from someone who
has used and compared so many distros I couldn't begin to count. And it
would be nice to combine the positive aspects of all of them and have a
truly "killer" distro someday that might overcome all of the complaints
that my M$ using friends have about switching and possibly give Linux a
whirl and actually start using it on a daily basis. 

Now how about using the cool filesystem from GOBO in Ubuntu? ;)


-- 
sunmicroman