I ran gentoo on a system for a few days earlier this year, right up to
where my system became a casualty of an emerge limitation, documented at
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-manual.xml :

	Warning: Unmerging packages can be dangerous. If you remove any
	core packages your system may cease to function and the removal of
	various libraries may cause software to fail. Portage does not warn
	you if you are removing core packages or dependencies for other
	packages.

This seems like a critical limitation to me.  It means that unless I have a
deep understanding of the dependencies among packages, the number of
packages on my system can only grow.

In general, Gentoo seems to be quite well architected, and this limitation
sticks out like a sore thumb to me.  What is the rationale?  Is it on the
"to be fixed" list, or is it intentional?  If it's intentional, how do
people maintain systems over the long term without re-installing every so
often?

I'm searching for a Linux distro to switch to (I'm one of those Red Hat
customers being left in the lurch), and Gentoo seems really nice, *except*
for this one problem, so some enlightenment would really be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason Evans

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