[CLUE-Tech] distro question

[Collins Richey]

[ snips ]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 21:15:42 -0600
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:

> 
> On Jun 10, 2004, at 7:41 PM, Adam Bultman wrote:
> 
> > I like gentoo for a few different reasons:
> > 1.  It is source based, but requires very little intervention from
> > me.
> 
> What does going direct from source on your machine buy you 
> other than the *possible* benefits of optimizations like -O3, etc.  
> (And I put *possible* because I know that's a raging debate... the 
> performance gain isn't always that much.)

One thing it buys you is this. On binary based distros it may be
difficult to find an RPM or DEB that is compiled with a set of libraries
that are totally compatible with your system. With source you get a
compiled version using your peculiar library settings. When running
Mandrake, I used to wonder why I couldn't run Cooker RPMs on my plain
vanilla Mandrake system - library incompatibilities. If there is an
incompatibility at the source level, the gentoo ebuild will force
upgrade of the dependancies.

Compile options are no big deal (I'm sure I'll get flamed here!)
although some are impressed by spectacular optimizations.

> 
> > 2.  Dependencies are solved automagically.
> 
> I also question this one: I haven't seen any package-based distros not
> 
> have this either?  What do you mean?

RPM and DEB extensions have gotten better at this, but RPM itself has
not built in dependancy resolution. I don't know about DEB.

> 
> > 3. I don't have to surf the net to get new packages.
> 
> This one I understand in the RPM world, but I don't "get" when talking
> 
> about Debian and maybe SuSE.  They both have incredible amounts of 
> pre-compiled packages and it usually doesn't take very long for
> someone to create on and put it in the official "unstable" branches of
> those distros if something new comes along.  (And then it's super-easy
> usually to backport them if you're not on the "unstable" branches.)
> ???
> 
> > 4. It doesn't have problems like RPM and APT have (and yes, I know
> > how to use both).
> 
> I'm not very versed in Gentoo, but I thought there were problems with 
> getting your USE= flags wrong early-on and then having to force 
> rebuilds of things later if you didn't put everything + the kitchen 
> sink in your first cut at your USE= setup?  (I seem to recall running 
> into that anyway... forgetting to have for example "kde" in there and 
> then adding it later meant that anything that was built before needed 
> to be rebuilt, right?)
> 

It depends. Not every package makes use of the same USE= settings. If
you forget to comiple with a specific USE= setting, then you will need
to recompile packages that depend on that particular USE= setting, by no
means the kitchen sink.

> 
> > 5.  HArd to install programs (gnucash, mplayer, xine) work fine and 
> > install easy.
> 
> Hmm... I'm just not sure I have enough thought power tonight I tackle 
> the opposite side of that one... too tired.  :-)
> 
> > I'm a lazy person. To get what I want in fedora, Red Hat, slackware,
> > 
> > debian, I have to go through this huge process at install.  I
> 
> Um, I think all machine builds are this way... in binary package based
> 
> installers you select a large chunk of packages and they download 
> forever and eventually the machine's ready to go.  In Gentoo, you 
> download source forever, build forever and then the machine's ready to
> 
> go... it seems a wash, or perhaps even longer on the Gentoo way of 
> doing things???
> 

Once again, it's not the effort at initial install time, but the simple
way of continuously upgrading your system while you are using it rather
that the binary distro approach (mostly) of releasing a complete new
system just to get kdex.x.x, for example. Except for adding a new
system, I could still be running a pre-version-1 gentoo system upgraded
incrementally over the years.



> 
> > I've run a lot of distros (slack red hat 6 6.2 7.2 7.4 8) suse
> > debian turbolinux beehive fedora) , and I think I've settled on
> > gentoo. Give it a whirl; I think you find you'll like it.  I did.
> 
> I did, and I *liked* it, but I hated waiting for my slow-ish machines 
> to compile all the time.  I think I'd enjoy it better if I had a 
> smoking CPU and fast disks.  (GRIN)
> 
> I dunno... to be honest setting up a new machine always sucks if you 
> want all the toys you'd gotten used to on the last machine!  (GRIN)  
> 
> Sounds like we take similar approaches with different tools.
> 
> They're all great, aren't they!
> 
> (Of course, my BSD-loving friend would dogpile in here and totally 
> change this conversation around... heh... but that's a COMPLETELY 
> different story to tell... and there's just not time tonight...)
> 

Yep, different strokes for different folks. I even enjoyed my brief
experimentation with FreeBSD a couple of years ago.

-- 
 /\/\
( CR ) Collins Richey
 \/\/