[Sussex] Next time the Gentoo argument starts...

[Geoff Teale]

I think the key point is this - Gentoo _can_ be faster than  a generic 
build under very specific circumstances.  To get that kind of 
performance you need to really understand GCC and the impact its various 
options have on your machine.  At the end of the day Linux is Linux.  A 
lot of Gentoo advocates (myself included) have said a lot about how 
great it is to have an optomised build and so on, but the most common 
demand of new Gentoo users is a quick, easy, binary install base.  
Gentoo 1.4 will make this option available.  So I'm inclined to conclude 
that the people who like Gentoo because they can optomise and control 
the structure of their machine from the ground up are actually rarer 
than the people who a: want decent package management but find Debian 
too behind the times and don't want to touch it's unstable branch; or b: 
just want to use Gentoo  because it's probably the most fashionable 
distro out there right now.  I think the later case is because there is 
some kudos in being able to say you built the OS from the ground up, but 
lets face it guys, unless your Linus, Ted or Alan or a member of the GCC 
or glibc dev team you're just kidding yourselves :)

Increasingly the main reason I choose Gentoo over Debian is that it 
allows me to use the _current_ release of software and libraries rather 
than some earlier (but probably more reliable) version.  Especially 
useful are develop e-builds that link directly into CVS for projects 
such as Gnome and Enlightenment.  This allows developers (like me) to 
develop new software, submit it throug CVS and then use emerge to build 
this into our systems seemlessly.  This really helps with things like 
Gnome 2.3 (the 2.4 development tree) where some developers are adding 
new dependencies - when they do they simply add the dependcy to the 
package and when I emerge it those dependencies get pulled in with the 
code that requires them.

Gareth Ablett wrote:

>tbh very intresting but it isn't gonna make me go back to using mandrake.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steve Dobson" <steve.dobson at krasnegar.demon.co.uk>
>To: "Sussex Linux User Group" <sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk>
>Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 8:41 PM
>Subject: [Sussex] Next time the Gentoo argument starts...
>
>
>  
>
>>Geoff, Matt and all you Gentoo lovers.
>>
>>This was posted on the debian devel mail list.  Yes, as Ross points
>>out, it is ruff and ready.  But it does make intresting reading.
>>
>>Steve D
>>    
>>
-- 
GJT
gteale at member.fsf.org
gteale at cmedltd.com