Gentoo is probably the most user hostile Linux distribution I can think of other than ones purposely austere for learning (LFS) or parody (Suicide Linux).

If Mac Ports requires that level of knowledge to be user friendly it’s no surprise they lost.

If Gentoo makes your particular computer goal easier to achieve, I don't think it's "hostile".

Most people will never need Gentoo or want to use it, but for those with either a need or a desire for a meta-distribution, Gentoo does a pretty good job. I don't think calling it "user hostile" is quite right.

I think it's been partially supplanted by other package managers now like Nix/NixOS and even (IMO) XBPS/Void, but Portage does an alright job.

I used Gentoo for a while and mostly liked it. There was one reason I stopped using it -- dependency conflicts. Every time you update, there's a new set of conflicts that you have to personally untangle.

By any other metric, I would consider it more user-friendly than average. For example, I was very favorably impressed when (not knowing what I was doing), I gave the command to uninstall libc, and after confirming that I really wanted to do that, I was allowed to.

Ha, what was it, emerge -e world ? Or something like that. It’s been like 15 years since I did that.

The community feel was pretty good. Excellent documentation/wiki. And it was by far the best Linux education I could have ask for back in those days. I’m happy ...

I used gentoo for a few years and found it to be very pleasant, with a great wiki. The only reason I ever stopped using it is because I realized how senseless it was to build everything from source on a laptop with questionable thermal characteristics. Running laptop fans full tilt for hours on end a few times a week evidently exceeds their expected duty cycle, who'd have thunk, but I had to replace the fan in my T60p twice before I learned this lesson. Building everything with Macports would have the same problem, except worse because mac laptops were never as easy to repair as thinkpads, particularly not in recent years.

No, it doesn’t need more knowledge. It’s pretty simple to use. I was just pointing out similarity in concept. Something other users may have experienced in the past. I don’t agree with Gentoo being hostile :). Complex and educational, sure. But if anything, you can shape it exactly you want it! If you meant the community, wait until you meet the wrath of ArchLinux forums LOL

Hostile, as in not everything is mouse clicky for you?

It was a great learning experience nearly 20 years ago.

It's just not for you.

It was a great learning experience for me too.

It's just not user friendly.

It was my first experience with linux in 2003, going through some 80 page wiki to get things configured and built. Learning how to configure an fstab file.

Hostile as in everything requires following a multipage guide of commands and manual configuration that often didn't quite work. Also when I asked on the forum I was told they didn't want more users, but more skilled users (I was 12).

So not really mouse clicky, more that basic functionality takes enormous effort to get working and the community at the time wasn't great.

I've never used MacPorts. Go figure, I just realized that "MacPorts" means "bsd ports for mac". I'll have to try it sometime and see if I prefer the look and feel of MacPorts.

I've found it rather easy to use, I've only been a mac user for a couple of years. I've not had any problems with updates either. I switched from brew fairly quickly when brew told me I couldn't install packages because they weren't "safe" even though I knew they were in fact fine because I've used them for years on linux.

If you liked bsd ports, you are probably going to like MacPorts too. I only wish they better advertise how to set up MacPorts without sudo/within users homedir. I have been using it like that for 4 years and it works great. No worries about affecting mac core bins. Highly recommend if you want to just test it out