[Sussex] A funny thing happened on the way to the Net

[Dominic Humphries]

Quoting Steve Dobson <steve at dobson.org>:
> Then I have to ask what is the point of Gentoo?  If you get the same
> software as Debian/sid or Fedora then why were you paying the compile
> time costs that Gentoo requires.

Since I just leave emerge running overnight, as far as I'm concerned, 
there's no
such cost. But that's just me :o)

> I am trying to explore how the differences between the various Linux
> distros are good for business rather than the differences themselves.
...
> Believe me, there is so, so much more to performance tuning then just setting
> a few switches on the compiler.

I'm sure there is. But to use your logic in an earlier reply, i.e.

> If you were creating a web hosting business and could offer only one
> software which would you go for?  The one that offered the best
> performance (or cutting edge tech) or the one that offered the most
> stability?)

If *you* were creating a web hosting business and had the choice of:

A distro that's very stable but uses software compiled -with-kitchen-sink and
for an old CPU

-or-

A distro that's very stable but uses software with unnecessary functionality
easily stripped out and for your current CPU. . .

then why *wouldn't* you choose the latter?

Especially since, if you need to make sure your software is completely
optimized, you had to make changes to the source & compile it regardless of
which distro you chose?

After all, it's surely easier to use a source-based distro if you're going to
modify source? Using Debian but compiling the software to get it 100%
optimized, you're still paying the compile-time penalty, and you're working
*against* the packaging system, instead of having it work *for* you.

Again, these are the thoughts of somebody who's never sysadmin'd 
anything but a
desktop PC. But you *did* ask ;o)

Dominic