[Nottingham] Gentoo dead

[Philip Scott]

Heyho,

> I saw a benchmark once that put the speed difference between gentoo and
> $distro (i think debian and red hat in that example) somewhere between
> 'none' and 'within the error margins of the test'.  Most distros also
> have the advantage that you don't have to watch gcc humping the cpu for
> hours on end.

Well, 'speed' is a very, very subjective term - and all the arguments either 
way have already been made a thousand times. Whatever the reality, it is 
rather nice to feel like your operating system is tailored to your 
computer :) It feels like a nice expensive suite instead of a cheap-n-nasty 
'One size fits all affair'

But oddly enough, I don't use Gentoo for speed reasons - I use it because I 
really think it's a beautiful creation. It feels like something that was 
designed, rather than something that evolved. It has wonderful documentation, 
it has a vibrant community, it has really really nice good support for proper 
desktops :) I won't slag off any others by name, but lets say I have had 
trouble in the past keeping things up to date sensibly. The Gentoo KDE 3.2 
ebuild was around before the KDE team made their release.

I know some people don't like pretty desktops, and who want software that was 
released two years ago running on their machines - but I am not one of them 
and Gentoo suites me down to the ground.

Each unto his own, I say.

Nighty night you luggers!

- Philip

PS - GCC is fun to watch.

PPS - The day I just want to 'get on with a job' (and no one is paying me) 
with my PC is the day I start looking for a new hobby ;)

PPPS - I do not mean to start a distro or flame war, if you wish to crush my 
arguments one by one to prove me wrong on all accounts, please do so - but 
spare the mailing list and mail me personally 8*)