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Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's describe as a system |
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similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source. |
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The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get |
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better performance because all executables are optimized for |
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exactly the right instruction set. |
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|
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Where did that bit of apocrypha come from, and why is it |
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parroted by so many people? |
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|
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AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization |
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is practically nil in real-world usage. |
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|
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In my experience the huge benefit of source-based distros such |
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as Gentoo is elimination of the library dependency-hell that |
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mires other binary-based distros. |
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|
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For many years I ran RedHat and then Mandrake. After a year or |
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so, they became impossible to maintain because of library |
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version conflicts. Every time I tried up upgrade an RPM package |
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to fix a bug or security hole, it required a handful of |
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libraries to be upgraded, but doing that would break a bunch of |
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other RPMs for which upgrades weren't available. The solution |
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was always to start building stuff from sources. Once you |
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started doing that, the package manager would get upset because |
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it doesn't know about some stuff that's installed (unless you |
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built from source RPMs, which had another set of problems). |
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|
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The second benefit is that with Gentoo, upgrading a system |
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actually works over the long-run. With RedHat/Mandrake, things |
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would gradually deteriorate to the point where the system was |
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unmaintainable, but attempting to upgrade between major |
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releases was always futile. I've had Gentoo machines that have |
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been upgraded for 4-5 years without any significant problems |
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(failed hard-drives don't count). |
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|
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The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more |
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packages available for Gentoo. Putting together and |
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maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than |
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putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. I've |
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had far fewer problems with third party ebuilds than I did with |
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third-party RPMs (on the rare occasions when I found one for |
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some obscure application I wanted to run). Again, the solution |
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was always "build from sources". |
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|
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Are the real benefits of Gentoo too hard to explain to the |
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unwashed masses, so instead they're told the fairy tale about |
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imporoved performance? |
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|
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-- |
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Grant Edwards grante Yow! ! Up ahead! It's a |
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at DONUT HUT!! |
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visi.com |