| 1 |
2009/2/3 Grant Edwards <grante@××××.com>: |
| 2 |
> Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's describe as a system |
| 3 |
> similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source. |
| 4 |
> The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get |
| 5 |
> better performance because all executables are optimized for |
| 6 |
> exactly the right instruction set. |
| 7 |
> |
| 8 |
> Where did that bit of apocrypha come from, and why is it |
| 9 |
> parroted by so many people? |
| 10 |
|
| 11 |
I guess that is because the average user doesn't know those other |
| 12 |
problems. Maybe he is used to reinstall his system every few months |
| 13 |
because he used Windows before (which was the case for me, I repeat |
| 14 |
was). Or he just reinstalls it when something fails. |
| 15 |
Also this sounds like a very strong argument. Just imagine! That shiny |
| 16 |
new CPU of yours and it wasn't running at it's full potential! But |
| 17 |
wait no more! Use Gentoo and it'll show the power of all its |
| 18 |
instructions! |
| 19 |
|
| 20 |
> |
| 21 |
> AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization |
| 22 |
> is practically nil in real-world usage. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
Not nil, but very very small. Maybe some 0.25 oder 0.5 frames per |
| 25 |
second in a game or 2 or 3 requests more per second for a webserver. I |
| 26 |
tried that. |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
> |
| 29 |
> In my experience the huge benefit of source-based distros such |
| 30 |
> as Gentoo is elimination of the library dependency-hell that |
| 31 |
> mires other binary-based distros. |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
You are absolutely right! |
| 34 |
|
| 35 |
> |
| 36 |
> For many years I ran RedHat and then Mandrake. After a year or |
| 37 |
> so, they became impossible to maintain because of library |
| 38 |
> version conflicts. Every time I tried up upgrade an RPM package |
| 39 |
> to fix a bug or security hole, it required a handful of |
| 40 |
> libraries to be upgraded, but doing that would break a bunch of |
| 41 |
> other RPMs for which upgrades weren't available. The solution |
| 42 |
> was always to start building stuff from sources. Once you |
| 43 |
> started doing that, the package manager would get upset because |
| 44 |
> it doesn't know about some stuff that's installed (unless you |
| 45 |
> built from source RPMs, which had another set of problems). |
| 46 |
> |
| 47 |
> The second benefit is that with Gentoo, upgrading a system |
| 48 |
> actually works over the long-run. With RedHat/Mandrake, things |
| 49 |
> would gradually deteriorate to the point where the system was |
| 50 |
> unmaintainable, but attempting to upgrade between major |
| 51 |
> releases was always futile. I've had Gentoo machines that have |
| 52 |
> been upgraded for 4-5 years without any significant problems |
| 53 |
> (failed hard-drives don't count). |
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
I hope mine will run as long as yours :) But I'm quite sure it will. |
| 56 |
I just love that I can pick newer packages by unkeywording them and I |
| 57 |
don't have all those library problems that I would happen with other |
| 58 |
distributions. (Which can sometimes be avoided with backports, I know, |
| 59 |
but those aren't always available...) |
| 60 |
|
| 61 |
> |
| 62 |
> The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more |
| 63 |
> packages available for Gentoo. Putting together and |
| 64 |
> maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than |
| 65 |
> putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. I've |
| 66 |
> had far fewer problems with third party ebuilds than I did with |
| 67 |
> third-party RPMs (on the rare occasions when I found one for |
| 68 |
> some obscure application I wanted to run). Again, the solution |
| 69 |
> was always "build from sources". |
| 70 |
|
| 71 |
Hmm.. I think making an ebuild is even harder. Because you have got |
| 72 |
different combinations of USE flags and if you are a good maintainer |
| 73 |
you should check them all, if you build an rpm it is fine if it works. |
| 74 |
With 4 USE flags there are already 31 possible combinations.... just |
| 75 |
imagine some larger packets with ten and more USE Flags... |
| 76 |
|
| 77 |
> |
| 78 |
> Are the real benefits of Gentoo too hard to explain to the |
| 79 |
> unwashed masses, so instead they're told the fairy tale about |
| 80 |
> imporoved performance? |
| 81 |
> |
| 82 |
|
| 83 |
I guess yes, because they just install packages from their |
| 84 |
distribution or wildly from the internet so they destroy their |
| 85 |
installation and have to reinstall anyways. |
| 86 |
|
| 87 |
And by the way, I love the slogan "Gentoo - It's all about choices" |
| 88 |
maybe it should be used more often, maybe it could beat that improved |
| 89 |
performance slogan. |
| 90 |
|
| 91 |
|
| 92 |
|
| 93 |
-- |
| 94 |
Currently developing a browsergame... |
| 95 |
http://www.p-game.de |
| 96 |
Trade - Expand - Fight |
| 97 |
|
| 98 |
Follow me at twitter! |
| 99 |
http://twitter.com/moortier |
Archives