[sclug] Gentoo...

[Alex Butcher]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Simon Huggins wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 11:51:09AM +0000, Darren Davison wrote:
>> On Sunday 28 November 2004 11:34, Hamlesh Motah wrote:
>>> Anyway, my question is simple, why has there been so much hype over
>>> Gentoo recently?
>> The ability to compile all software to match your own hardware (rather
>> than the lowest common denominator that pre-compilation necessarily
>> dictates) is great
>
> What do you think you gain from this specifically?  Do you mean in terms
> of features you turn on/off (e.g. picking one of OSS or ALSA) or in
> terms of compiler optimisations?

Indeed; once you've got an optimized kernel, glibc, and crypto libraries,
you're rapidly into diminishing returns. I'd be amazed if anyone even
recoups the compile time from improved runtimes.

Additionally, i386 RH and Fedora are optimized for i686 (or Athlon, if you
install the .athlon.rpm packages) but only use the i386 instruction set, so
the binaries still run on strictly-speaking-686-but-not-quite-in-practice
CPUs such as some of the VIA chips. Again, the performance gains from being
able to use CMOV and such are relatively insignificant.

> Simon.

Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>