dtgreene: This is clearly the quote of someone who should be using a stable system that just works
darktjm: Hilarious. Need I mention that when I switched from Debian to Gentoo, Gentoo was a more stable system that worked better? Or that "just working" is impossible (even for Windows, which the modern machines were made for)? I've used Slackware, Debian, RHEL (aka CentOS), Ubuntu, and Gentoo for extended periods (>2yr) at home or at work, and others for shorter periods. They are all crap. I have been using Gentoo for too long now (over a decade) to switch to some other distro without a very big incentive (I had used Debian for 6 years prior, but I had good incentive to switch, and part of that incentive is still there, so not likely to switch back).
I had a longer response typed up, but I don't really feel like saying so much.
I didn't know you actaully used Gentoo; I was just using it as an example. (Arch would have worked equally well as an example for this purposes; the main difference I see is that Gentoo allows more choice at the expense of package installation and updates taking much longer.)
Assuming you wish to stay with Gentoo:
* Try using an LTS kernel and sticking with it, only upgrading to point releases until you are at a time when you can deal with fixing possible breakage. (Also, keep your old kernel around until you know the new one works for you; Debian keeps the three most recent installed kernels, and that seems like a reasonable practice.)
* Avoid the unstable (~) branch if you want things to just work; said software hasn't been tested as heavily, and might break things.
* Does Gentoo have anything similar to the "apt-listbugs" package? If so, it might be a good idea to use it. (Also, if there's an "apt-listchanges" counterpart, that would be good as well.)
(By the way, is Gentoo's dependency resolution still horribly slow, or have they fixed that?)
GameRager: With windows(for me) it just works out of the box usually.
Not everyone has that experience. For some people/hardware, Windows doesn't work well, but Linux does. (Case in point; low end systems, like that mini computer I have with 2GB ram and 32GB storage, run much better with Linux than with Windows.)