RSS 
Well, after my last post about instabilities, I 'fsck --rebuild-tree'ed my root filesystem which so far (knocks on wood) seems to have solved my random powering down during load problem. Then I rebuilt mono, tomboy, python and gnome-applets. Tomboy at least started working after that but not gedit or sticky notes (or anything with edit boxes). Finally I rebuilt gtk+, atk, and pango and now everything seems to be working.
Now that I again have a working system I'm much less inclined to trash it and try Ubuntu. Now that my system works I remember more how much I don't like non portage package management systems because nothing is as good (multiple versions of available software is surprisingly rare but handy). I still don't know how you search for packages and look through packages on a debian system, where as you can traverse the portage tree or use 'emerge -s' or eix with portage. I still wouldn't mind at some point trying a more focused, polished and integrated desktop, but as long as mine works and is still cutting edge I can wait. And hey, maybe in a year we will have a Gnome Desktop seed of quality rivaling Ubuntu as well ;). A boy can dream can't he?
Edit:
Of course the the massive flame fest on Gentoo-dev over seeds, and now Seemant saying "This is Gentoo, We don't DO new. Go to Ubuntu for that." doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. PR black clouds have been circling Gentoo all year and that is depressing. I really hope they can get it together and move on because sadly, Ubuntu has awesome sunny PR skies over them.
