Saphirus Sage wrote: > Grant Edwards wrote: > >> Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's describe as a system >> similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source. >> The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get >> better performance because all executables are optimized for >> exactly the right instruction set. >> >> Where did that bit of apocrypha come from, and why is it >> parroted by so many people? >> >> AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization >> is practically nil in real-world usage. >> >> In my experience the huge benefit of source-based distros such >> as Gentoo is elimination of the library dependency-hell that >> mires other binary-based distros. >> >> For many years I ran RedHat and then Mandrake. After a year or >> so, they became impossible to maintain because of library >> version conflicts. Every time I tried up upgrade an RPM package >> to fix a bug or security hole, it required a handful of >> libraries to be upgraded, but doing that would break a bunch of >> other RPMs for which upgrades weren't available. The solution >> was always to start building stuff from sources. Once you >> started doing that, the package manager would get upset because >> it doesn't know about some stuff that's installed (unless you >> built from source RPMs, which had another set of problems). >> >> The second benefit is that with Gentoo, upgrading a system >> actually works over the long-run. With RedHat/Mandrake, things >> would gradually deteriorate to the point where the system was >> unmaintainable, but attempting to upgrade between major >> releases was always futile. I've had Gentoo machines that have >> been upgraded for 4-5 years without any significant problems >> (failed hard-drives don't count). >> >> The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more >> packages available for Gentoo. Putting together and >> maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than >> putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. I've >> had far fewer problems with third party ebuilds than I did with >> third-party RPMs (on the rare occasions when I found one for >> some obscure application I wanted to run). Again, the solution >> was always "build from sources". >> >> Are the real benefits of Gentoo too hard to explain to the >> unwashed masses, so instead they're told the fairy tale about >> imporoved performance? >> >> >> > > Being a metadistribution, the concept of higher performance isn't quite > that much of a fairy tale. If you can easily configure your system to a > specific purpose, that would ideally lead to better performance, whether > it be due to the specialization of the system or at least a placebo > effect on the user. Gentoo is honestly my first linux system, so I don't > really have the experience of library conflicts of binary distros. > People in general will usually just want confirmation that something has > benefits over what they currently have, irregardless of evidence of > exactly why it is better, so that may be part of why so many supporters > "parrot" the same view regarding Gentoo. On the other hand, I just take > a lot of it as peace of mind in that all the responsibility for how my > system is running is directly mine, as opposed to being able to blame > someone who made a bad RPM. I like knowing any little factor of my > system and what it's doing. > > >
I'll also add this info. I switched from Mandrake to Gentoo a long time ago. Mandrake was slow and took a good while to login and open larger apps. Gentoo on the exact same machine runs way faster. Login is a LOT faster, especially the second time around since it is cached, and apps start a lot faster too. You do have to have a set of sane FLAGS for this to work but it can be faster depending on how much time you spend looking up the correct settings. Dale :-) :-)
