A standalone utility for decoding QR codes that will work on a desktop. All I want is to be able to put a picture of the code in and get whatever text it was concealing in a little text box where I can read it, and C&P it if it’s useful to do so. If something like this exists, I’ve never been able to find it, although there are seemingly dozens of programs for generating QR codes.

I’d just roll back the problem package to the last acceptable version until I have the time to address whatever the issue is (or block the new version of just that package if I have advance notification). That way, I get the fixes for everything else without breaking my workflow. If a rolling-release distro has a package manager that doesn’t allow that, I’d contend that said package manager is broken.

. . . until something in the stack requires a significant kernel upgrade, and then you’re stuck.

What exactly is the point of stable release? I don’t need everything pinned to specific versions—I’m not running a major corporate web service that needs a 99.9999% uptime guarantee—and Internet security is a moving target that requires constant updates.

Security and bug fixes—especially bug fixes, in my experience—are a good enough reason to go rolling-release even if you don’t usually need bleeding-edge features in your software.

Take your time with the install process. It’s possible that you may breeze through it. It’s also possible that you may discover that, say, there’s something wrong with the EFI implementation of the system you’re installing to that you need to do some research to resolve. I’ve had both experiences.

Once installed, Gentoo is pretty much rock-solid, and almost any issue you have can be fixed if you’re willing to put the effort in. Portage is a remarkably capable piece of software and it’s worth learning about its more esoteric abilities, like automatic user patch application.

Do take the time to set up a binary package host. This will allow you to install precompiled versions of packages where you’ve kept the default USE flags. Do everything you possibly can to avoid changing the flags on webkit-gtk, because it is quite possibly the worst monster compile in the tree at the moment and will take hours even on a capable eight-core processor. (Seriously, it takes an order of magnitude more time than compiling the kernel does.)

Install the gentoolkit package—equery is a very useful command. If you find config file management with etc-update difficult to deal with, install and configure cfg-update—it’s more friendly.

If you’re not gung-ho about Free Software, setting ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" (which used to be the default up until a few years ago) in make.conf may make your life easier. Currently, the default is to accept only explicitly certified Free Software licenses (@FREE); the version I’ve given accepts everything except corporate EULAs. It’s really a matter of taste and convenience.

Lastly, it’s often worthwhile to run major system upgrades overnight (make sure you --pretend first to sort out any potential issues). If you do want to run updates while you’re at the computer, reduce the value of -j and other relevant compiler and linker options to leave a core free—it’ll slow down the compile a bit, but it’ll also vastly improve your experience in using the computer.

(I’ve been a happy Gentoo user for ~20 years.)