So I awoke to find my Gentoo install installed. Upon reboot, I get a surprise: I boffed something in the kernel compile. And the boot floppy I made as part of the install doesn't work. So that's not so fun.

I mostly just want to be able to keep my system upgraded and working. I mean, I don't mind spending 3 hours to test out a new distribution, but if it doesn't work, then I'm not going to go through the whole process again unless I have to. So time to look for another solution. I'll have to come back to Gentoo when I have the time to sit down and figure out what's what. I should probably try a non-laptop install anyway.

This all got me thinking about apt again. It does essentially what I need. If I could just find the right repositories then I'd be set. After a little googling, I came across the KDE for Red Hat Project. They have the newest KDE software -- but in RPM format, munged up like Red Hat likes them, in an apt repository. I added the right lines to my sources list, ran three commands, and when I restarted KDE, I was using the latest version (3.1.3). Then I went and grabbed Quanta (I had to see if I could install a new KDE app) from the KDE ftp site and installed it. Works like a charm. I'm fish'ed over to work and everything. The new version of Quanta seems *much* faster than that the older version that comes with Red Hat 9.

Having once built (upgraded) KDE from sources, I can tell you that I am now a huge fan of apt for RPM.

I also came across the Fedora Linux Home Page during my searches. They have a lot of 3rd party RPMs in an apt repository, and they support Red Hat 9 and the newest Red Hat beta.

One more note: Dag Wieers maintains an apt repository that looks to have a lot of nice software in it (including a lot of perl modules and such). It's worth a look as well.

If I can find enough repositories, I might just be able to keep Red Hat even after it's been EOL'ed.