Re: [gentoo-user] A Bit of Trivia

[Chris White]

On Sunday 01 January 2006 23:22, michael@×××××××××××××.com wrote:
> How slow is too slow for Gentoo? I'm using Gentoo on a 233MHz laptop.
> It's not fast, but it's perfectly adequate. Install did take over a
> week, I'll admit.
>
> I'm curious because I seem to do a lot of squeezing the most out of
> underpowered computers, and Gentoo has been my friend in these projects.
> I would like to know what conditions are not well suited to Gentoo.
>
> Michael

TBH that's a question of, it can be done in any situation, it's simply how 
willing you are to adjust to those situations.

One of the main factor people consider is time.  They want the stuff now and 
they don't want to wait around for things to compile.  However, with that 
inherent approach comes the lack of flexibility in choosing what you don't 
need, and what you do.  Think of postgres/mysql/sqlite for example.  All of 
these provide database functionality, but chances are you're only going to 
pick one.  If you don't use postgresql support, then why add it into various 
applications, causing both more space and more memory to load.  While that 
example alone might not seem like a lot, consider the different 
functionalities portage offers the ability to customize through USE flags.  
After awhile people start to realize that stuff is loaded faster, not because 
of suped up CFLAGS, but because the parts they stripped out creates faster 
load time.  

Now, binary support for portage exists, but it's not as advertised as the true 
install method.  That's because most senior developers consider Gentoo to 
have always been a source based distro.  Anything to make it binary would 
consider it to be more like debian or some such.  

Then ANOTHER argument comes into play by people that have mass server 
deployments.  People that have a cluster of 100 systems with the same specs 
don't want to sit around and compile for each one.  Instead they could have a 
build server that builds the binary packages for the systems, then the 
systems do the install.

That's basically what it comes down to.  Time is the main factor that draws 
people away.  However I personally consider this a side effect, and have no 
problem letting emerge -u world do its thing overnight.

Chris White