| 1 |
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@××××.com> wrote: |
| 2 |
> AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization |
| 3 |
> is practically nil in real-world usage. |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
It used to make a difference, but not anymore with today microprocessors. |
| 6 |
|
| 7 |
|
| 8 |
> In my experience the huge benefit of source-based distros such |
| 9 |
> as Gentoo is elimination of the library dependency-hell that |
| 10 |
> mires other binary-based distros. |
| 11 |
|
| 12 |
maybe redhat had that problem, but others (debian based distros for |
| 13 |
example) doesn't have dep hell AFAICS (I run Debian and Ubuntu based |
| 14 |
servers and desktops) |
| 15 |
|
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
> The second benefit is that with Gentoo, upgrading a system |
| 18 |
> actually works over the long-run. With RedHat/Mandrake, things |
| 19 |
> would gradually deteriorate to the point where the system was |
| 20 |
> unmaintainable, |
| 21 |
|
| 22 |
Same point. Maybe only a problem with RH. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
|
| 25 |
> The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more |
| 26 |
> packages available for Gentoo. |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
Hm.. Depends on what packages you're interested. You have no |
| 29 |
commercial support if you run Gentoo from -for example- VMware. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
|
| 32 |
> Putting together and |
| 33 |
> maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than |
| 34 |
> putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
Maybe. I haven't tried to make a RPM package, but I tried DEB. It's |
| 37 |
almost as easy as with Gentoo. |
| 38 |
|
| 39 |
|
| 40 |
> Are the real benefits of Gentoo too hard to explain to the |
| 41 |
> unwashed masses, so instead they're told the fairy tale about |
| 42 |
> imporoved performance? |
| 43 |
|
| 44 |
Gentoo has -from my point of view- only one benefit: if you're a |
| 45 |
developer, you'll love Gentoo as every dev-dependency is already |
| 46 |
installed. Other than that, I see none. |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
Now, if Gentoo devs could be as kind as -for example- Ubuntu devs, |
| 49 |
that would rock. But they aren,t and so -after 7 years- I'm looking |
| 50 |
for another distro to migrate to. Kubuntu is one of my favorites. I'm |
| 51 |
testing Fedora and openSuSE. Who will win? |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
Gentoo just doesn't make sense anymore for me - unless you're a masochist :) |
Archives