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Original post by C-Junkie
*huggles his linux kernel and dpkg*

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Agreed. *also huggles kernel and dpkg*

I don''t mind the idea of Gentoo: but I don''t want to spend all the time needed to install: plus I don''t know how much hard-core disk management I need to do to install Gentoo- I just formated my Windows drive by accident trying to install a distro...

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Original post by Oluseyi

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Original post by Dalik
Mind you Gentoo provides Pre-compiled downloads, along with shipping options for cd''s.

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Which makes it just like all the other distros.

Well every distro that I have seen offers, a pre-compiled, store order, or download and some have source. So in general most distros are a like, but I responding to Doc post about compiling taking a long time. So I said gentoo offers prr-compiled options.

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Then it also has the dl and compile option, you would do this if you wanted the most speed out of the OS that you wanted, and all that crap out of your OS that you dont want. Yes it does take time to compile but in the end you can always save your compiled files to CD or the main compiles, but the point is you get the latest versions of all your software, or you can pick what version you wish to have.

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This is a popular misconception. There is a very small portion of code that sees a signficant performance increase from being compiled for a specific machine architecture; in most cases, the generic family-compiled executable is fast enough.

As I said before, which you seem to of ignored, "if you wanted the most speed out of the OS" This means what is means, if you want the "most" performance out of your OS then compiling it is a must. Nowhere that I stated says you will get a lot, but you do get more.

Furthermore, the emergence of JIT compilation suggests that the "benefits" of the Gentoo system can be achieved with less hassle for more users (once again, automated).

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Gentoo is the only distro that provides awsome file management "Portage".

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Uh, dpkg. You know, the one known as apt-get? And that''s just for Linux. BSD has ports (where''d you think the name "portage" came from?) SuSE''s YaST2 even makes RPM very robust, and then there''s apt-rpm... You shouldn''t say things that you can''t back up.

This is a mistake on my part, I didnt consider apt-get because I never used that distro or suse, and BSD I thought was a unix OS not a linux ( there is a difference, which I believe one of the big differences is the network code. ) So I didnt include it in my post.

Gentoo is probably a solid distro. And nothing more.

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What makes I believe gentoo solid is that its more low level, without you having to deal with the OS at a low level, its like programming with C rather then ASM, you get really good speeds, without the low level programming that comes with it.

Portage is a very good system, I am not sure how it compares to apt-get, but gentoo is more for people that want a fast solid OS, where as mandrake for example is bloated a much slower.

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Original post by Dalik
Well every distro that I have seen offers, a pre-compiled, store order, or download and some have source. So in general most distros are a like, but I responding to Doc post about compiling taking a long time. So I said gentoo offers pre-compiled options.

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Is this a refutation? A rejoinder? Essentially, what is the point of this comment?

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As I said before, which you seem to of ignored, "if you wanted the most speed out of the OS" This means what is means, if you want the "most" performance out of your OS then compiling it is a must. Nowhere that I stated says you will get a lot, but you do get more.

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Performance is one of those terms that is a lot more abstract in meaning than people think it is. To maximize performance, I only need to compile those portions of the code that can benefit from being compiled for my specific architecture variant. Believe it or not, there are vast portions of code that compile exactly the same for i386 and i686 architectures. Compiling them is redundant.

Furthermore, I can compile any distro. Gentoo may provide a convenient interface to doing so, but so does Debian. And since the interface is convenient (ie, I''m not manually invoking or passing options to the compiler and/or linker), how do I know I''m really maximizing performance? The only way to maximize performance is by auditing and tweaking the code and the compilation options to take advantage of the specifics of your platform, which is such an exhausting process with such minor gains (Windows isn''t optimized for your hardware revision; it simply has a bunch of builds for different configurations/families, and it performs plenty fast).

Finally, true performance gains always come from doing things in smarter fashion, not from brute force.

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This is a mistake on my part, I didnt consider apt-get because I never used that distro or suse, and BSD I thought was a unix OS not a linux ( there is a difference, which I believe one of the big differences is the network code. ) So I didnt include it in my post.

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BSD is Unix, and not Linux. But that doesn''t deny it the right to lay claim to its innovations. But that''s orthogonal to the discussion. If you haven''t made a true survey, don''t make definitive utterances.

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What makes I believe gentoo solid is that its more low level, without you having to deal with the OS at a low level, its like programming with C rather then ASM, you get really good speeds, without the low level programming that comes with it.

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There is zero inherent benefit in being "low-level." I, for example, would much rather program in Python than in C. While I may lose some performance for simple things, the robustness and expressiveness I gain - not to mention the productivity increase - when it comes to complex things more than makes up for it.

So you have a "tuned" Linux system. What then? You spent hours compiling every piece of your distro. What benefit are you deriving from it? A problem that traditional Linux advocates had was this insular, just-because-it''s-cool approach to appreciating the technology. Thankfully, the involvement of big business in Linux is curing that. A computer system is only as good as it is useful.

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Portage is a very good system, I am not sure how it compares to apt-get, but gentoo is more for people that want a fast solid OS, where as mandrake for example is bloated a much slower.

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This comment is redundant and says nothing.

Oluseyi, jeez man - brutal you are, me thinks (<--- redundant comment that says nothing; quote me on this)

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Performance is one of those terms that is a lot more abstract in meaning than people think it is. To maximize performance, I only need to compile those portions of the code that can benefit from being compiled for my specific architecture variant. Believe it or not, there are vast portions of code that compile exactly the same for i386 and i686 architectures. Compiling them is redundant.

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Wrong. Not entirely, but wrong. Performance doesn''t come in only when compiling portitons of code that are optimized. You have a large performance gain when you can select just what parts of the code to compile. I dont want to use mozilla composer, mozilla calander, so I tell Portage to leave that crap out when compiling. Ergo, performance gain.

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Furthermore, I can compile any distro. Gentoo may provide a convenient interface to doing so, but so does Debian. And since the interface is convenient (ie, I''m not manually invoking or passing options to the compiler and/or linker), how do I know I''m really maximizing performance?

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You dont. But you know exactly what the hell is being installed, what the paths are, the options, configuration, et cetra. Don''t get me wrong, the same can be done if you are installing from, oh say, packages.

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Is this a refutation? A rejoinder? Essentially, what is the point of this comment?

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Doc said that the downside to compiling from source is: takes too long. He said that if someone has a pre-compiled package, then why not just install that? In response to Doc''s comment, Dalik pointed out that Gentoo does have a "package" option - just to releive Doc of his presious cpu time.

I dont really see how compiling your software is so counterproductive. If you are compiling somthing, that does not limit you to do somthing else. If I am going to compile mozilla, I am not going to sit there watching the compiler messages, I am going to work on somthing else. Sure, the computer is slower for some more time then usual, but you are not limited in youre productivity.

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Original post by Oluseyi
Performance is one of those terms that is a lot more abstract in meaning than people think it is. To maximize performance, I only need to compile those portions of the code that can benefit from being compiled for my specific architecture variant.

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Original post by aftermath
Wrong. Not entirely, but wrong. Performance doesn''t come in only when compiling portitons of code that are optimized. You have a large performance gain when you can select just what parts of the code to compile.

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You said what I said, but you said I was wrong. Ergo, you don''t know what you''re saying.

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I dont want to use mozilla composer, mozilla calander, so I tell Portage to leave that crap out when compiling. Ergo, performance gain.

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LOL. No.

When I speak of performance, I don''t include the process of compiling the applications. I refer strictly to using the apps. You should, too.

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I dont really see how compiling your software is so counterproductive. If you are compiling somthing, that does not limit you to do somthing else. If I am going to compile mozilla, I am not going to sit there watching the compiler messages, I am going to work on somthing else. Sure, the computer is slower for some more time then usual, but you are not limited in youre productivity.

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If you install from a package, you start using the product in a few minutes. If you compile from source, you have to wait longer before you can use it. Which is a productivity loss.

It would probably help if you would fully grasp what matters and what doesn''t for the computer user. Not enthusiast. Not hacker. User. "Person who employs the computer and installed software to perform and complete work-related tasks." If you''re not a user, your considerations are unimportant. Compiling software that you will not use (or will not use to potential) is a waste of time. Compiling for compiling''s sake ("It''s more stable." "It''s ''faster.''") is a waste of time.

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Original post by Oluseyi
Is this a refutation? A rejoinder? Essentially, what is the point of this comment?

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The point in this comment was to let you know that I was repsonding to Doc since he seemed to awsume that Gentoo was a compile only distro. I was just making this clear for everyone, but I should have put in his name.

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Performance is one of those terms that is a lot more abstract in meaning than people think it is. To maximize performance, I only need to compile those portions of the code that can benefit from being compiled for my specific architecture variant. Believe it or not, there are vast portions of code that compile exactly the same for i386 and i686 architectures. Compiling them is redundant.

Furthermore, I can compile any distro. Gentoo may provide a convenient interface to doing so, but so does Debian. And since the interface is convenient (ie, I'm not manually invoking or passing options to the compiler and/or linker), how do I know I'm really maximizing performance? The only way to maximize performance is by auditing and tweaking the code and the compilation options to take advantage of the specifics of your platform, which is such an exhausting process with such minor gains (Windows isn't optimized for your hardware revision; it simply has a bunch of builds for different configurations/families, and it performs plenty fast).
Finally, true performance gains always come from doing things in smarter fashion, not from brute force.

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I agree that most of the code will run the same running from compiled code vs pre-compiled code. I also agree to gain the most performance is by editing the code yourself, but in a general way you will have a faster OS when you compile your own code if you pass in more optimizations settings to the compiler, they(distro authors) cant do this because they need to keep the pre-compiled versions general and you dont get the best performance. I can agree to a point that most of your daily linux activities will not notice a performance boost. But if there are people out there that want to take advantage of linux at its best then they will compile from source.

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If you haven't made a true survey, don't make definitive utterances

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My job or hobby isnt to look at all the flavors of linux that have some sort of file managment service. What I know, and I will give you this isnt a lot compared to other linux users but I wont include software from windows and compare it to linux, or mac to windows or unix to linux or even lindows. If I havent used it then you will have to take that into consideration, which you knew after my 2nd reply. I am also sorry for not taking any journaling classes. I am allowed to talk about my experience.

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There is zero inherent benefit in being "low-level." I, for example, would much rather program in Python than in C. While I may lose some performance for simple things, the robustness and expressiveness I gain - not to mention the productivity increase - when it comes to complex things more than makes up for it.

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Well if your looking to be more productive then use whatever system you like from source or pre-compiled, for a hobby, then again use whatever you want. You seem to be comparing this in a business enviroment which is good, but still linux is being used as hobbies and home servers. There are people that like to have full control and want to know how things work from a lower level.

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So you have a "tuned" Linux system. What then? You spent hours compiling every piece of your distro. What benefit are you deriving from it? A problem that traditional Linux advocates had was this insular, just-because-it's-cool approach to appreciating the technology. Thankfully, the involvement of big business in Linux is curing that. A computer system is only as good as it is useful.

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This can be said for all these game developers making there own 3d engines, or own model format, experience, I program because I want to learn. I will compile my OS from source till I feel that I can do it well. people edit there system files through a command prompt where a GUI based tool for most will be more productive. Yet people still use command prompt.

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This comment is redundant and says nothing.

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This last comment says that if you use gentoo your OS will be less bloated. This doesnt mean its more productive or anything else.


Sorry for the miss spellings I dont have a checker.

[Edit: Niced up your quoting and italics.]

[edited by - Oluseyi on February 18, 2004 11:27:10 PM]

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Original post by Dalik
The point in this comment was to let you know that I was repsonding to Doc since he seemed to awsume that Gentoo was a compile only distro. I was just making this clear for everyone, but I should have put in his name.

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Noted.

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...[I]f there are people out there that want to take advantage of linux at its best then they will compile from source.

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Really? Are you categorically sure of this, or do you just believe it because it "feels" right?

The people who take advantage of Linux the most are those running industrial-level applications - flight simulators, Beowulf clusters as supercomputing nodes, etc. If they have custom or obscure hardware they'll compile themselves, but as long as they're deploying on standard platforms - or as guest OSes (under IBM's AIX on zServer or R Series, for example) - they'll use precompiled packages. Because the performance of the OS can often be configured through several userland parameters, and because the performance of the applications is more critical than the underlying OS.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course. I'm equally entitled to disagree, and to make my assertions so that observing parties are aware of various caveats and gotchas in the debate.

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My job or hobby isnt to look at all the flavors of linux that have some sort of file managment service. What I know, and I will give you this isnt a lot compared to other linux users but I wont include software from windows and compare it to linux, or mac to windows or unix to linux or even lindows. If I havent used it then you will have to take that into consideration, which you knew after my 2nd reply. I am also sorry for not taking any journaling classes. I am allowed to talk about my experience.

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But you said:

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I think the emerge is just sweet, and this makes linux so much easier then any other flavor out there.

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Why would you say such a thing if you haven't even used all of the most popular distros (Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian)?

Don't get indignant or play the martyr. You goofed; 'fess up and get over it. We all goof.

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Well if your looking to be more productive then use whatever system you like from source or pre-compiled, for a hobby, then again use whatever you want. You seem to be comparing this in a business enviroment which is good, but still linux is being used as hobbies and home servers. There are people that like to have full control and want to know how things work from a lower level.

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Compiling doesn't give you control unless you know what you're compiling. I'm pretty damn sure 99% of Gentoo users haven't or aren't capable of auditing the source code they compile. Your argument is spurious (and is mostly just trying to "save face" rather than accepting that you may have been in error).

You want control? Learn how the system works overall. Learn how to tune and adjust its behavior. Learn how to maximize resources. Set your runtime (not compile-time) environment to help you accomplish as much as possible as quickly as possible.

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This can be said for all these game developers making there own 3d engines, or own model format, experience, I program because I want to learn.

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Nobody is contending with the value of learning by doing. But don't try to pass that off as a valid argument within the context of performance, productivity or even reliability. It's completely orthogonal.

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I will compile my OS from source till I feel that I can do it well.

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Uh, it's a couple of shell commands, not rocket science. It's even GUI-driven if you use menuconfig or xmenuconfig.

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people edit there system files through a command prompt where a GUI based tool for most will be more productive. Yet people still use command prompt.

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I don't think you're even making a point anymore. If a person chooses to use a less efficient method to do something, more power to them. I don't care what method (or distro) you use; if you compile from source or install packages; if you use command line or GUI; or what have you. I only care that honest and rational representations be made in macro arguments. I responded (and continue to respond) to this thread to refute arguments re the superiority/desirability of Gentoo as a Linux distribution. Nothing that has been said since has invalidated any of my original arguments.

On the derivative issues of productivity and performance, no one in the compile-it camp has made any viable points to prove that compiling from source reliably improves either property. (In fact, compiling from source has no impact whatsoever on productivity after installation, and is only a negative prior to then. The argument that a compiled, as opposed to packaged, app will run faster and thus enable the user to do more cannot be verified since it cannot be proven that compilation yields noticeable speed gains.)

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This last comment says that if you use gentoo your OS will be less bloated.

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Define bloat.

To me, bloat is anything you don't need. It's too much work to do that on a per-CPU instruction or per-C source file basis, so bloat is reduced by not installing packages you don't need. In that regard, compiling from source has no benefit over installing a package.

Just give it up!

[Edit: Broken quote.]

[edited by - Oluseyi on February 18, 2004 11:50:17 PM]

I think it's obvious that Gentoo doesn't target the average end-user. It targets professionals and hobbist. After running Netware for ten years on my home server, I've switched it to Gentoo (more to do with iptables, LVM, samba 3.0, & the 2.6 kernel than Gentoo, but I used Gentoo to build my system). I run Gentoo in my virtual vmware linux machine at work, run Gentoo on our developers linux server, and use Gentoo to build our embedded linux targets.

I'm in no position to say that this isn't feasible with other distributions, but Gentoo made it more obvious how to go about it, and there's an effort to make building embedded targets less painfull. Just the bootstrapping scripts get your started easier.

Most distros quickly failed on the embedded front (RedHat's stock glibc library is over 300megs! a custom compile can yield a ~10meg install, and you can go smaller with uclibc or dietlibc), and those targetted at embedded failed to scale-up and/or had poor packaging systems.

After some discussion on #gentoo-embedded, I requested a (simple & non-breaking) change to the way portage ROOT works, and it was implemented two days later.

The support for in-development and/or experimental packages is important to me too. Our application can make use of the nptl, the improved 2.6 supermount is critical, and samba 3 also makes networking to NT/XP less trouble. I dropped RedHat about a year ago, but I bet we'd still be waiting for these packages. That means we'd have to install source tar balls ourselves. Which leads one to ask why still use RedHat.

They definetly need work with binary kernel packages and some default, generic-support stock kernel (and they are). However, once you've built a kernel, it's not hard to make a tar ball out of it and untar it on the target system. I wrote a very simple script to grab the current running kernel, initrd, & modules. With some more effort, I think I could do a half-decent job of making the correct grub entries too. Hopefully the genkernel team will have a nice integrated solution soon.

With the exception of the kernel and packages such as mplayer or ogle, the big different in speed is in reducing the memory footprint, not by making the exe bigger by using -O3. Not using -g (or -ggdb) will also dramatically reduce file size. I suspect this is where most of Gentoo's slight speed edge comes from since everything is compiled the way you tell it (USE="-bloat")

Installing Gentoo reminds of those build-your-own dirt bike shops. You can go buy a dirt bike pre-built and ready to run, and be driving that day. However, if anyone out there rides dirt bikes you know what's coming, you beat the crap out of them and they break down, alot. If you do the build-your own, you often save a little bit of money, end up with a slightly higher performance bike, and when it breaks-down you know how to fix it.
Or like building your own PC, you can spend extra money on the parts that matter to you - more RAM, good video card, high quality motherboard, fast DVD burner, a 7200RPM hard drive with a 3meg cache (instead of 5400rpm 1meg).

If you like to tweak, Gentoo's you for you. If you don't, what are you doing running linux in the first place?

[edited by - Magmai Kai Holmlor on February 18, 2004 12:34:51 AM]

[edited by - Magmai Kai Holmlor on February 18, 2004 12:39:29 AM]

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Original post by Magmai Kai Holmlor
If you like to tweak, Gentoo''s you for you. If you don''t, what are you doing running linux in the first place?

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Good points, good quote.

Now on to the meat of things.

First, a question: What do you think of Novell''s purchase of SuSE, and how do you think that will affect Linux development (do you think we''ll see any nifty NetWare stuff come across)?

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I run Gentoo in my virtual vmware linux machine at work, run Gentoo on our developers linux server, and use Gentoo to build our embedded linux targets.

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Are the embedded targets Gentoo themselves, or do you simply use Gentoo as a build/deployment environment for the embedded targets? In my estimation there is no single distribution that can cover the entire spectrum of possible Linux deployment targets from embedded platforms to PCs to big iron. Your thoughts?

Incidentally, embedded platforms are the one target where it not only makes sense but is pretty much required to compile from source. If Gentoo makes that a priority (logical, given their leaning towards source), then that''s a very smart decision.

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The support for in-development and/or experimental packages is important to me too. Our application can make use of the nptl, the improved 2.6 supermount is critical, and samba 3 also makes networking to NT/XP less trouble. I dropped RedHat about a year ago, but I bet we''d still be waiting for these packages. That means we''d have to install source tar balls ourselves. Which leads one to ask why still use RedHat.

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I agree on that one. Red Hat has made obvious its focus on the enterprise workstation and server markets (spinning Fedora off and killing support for desktop versions), so this is no surprise. I actually prefer that they focus on their core competencies and not create unnecessarily competition, dilution of effort and so on when they are fully committed.

(Yes, I have a soft spot for Red Hat.)

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Installing Gentoo reminds of those build-your-own dirt bike shops. You can go buy a dirt bike pre-built and ready to run, and be driving that day. However, if anyone out there rides dirt bikes you know what''s coming, you beat the crap out of them and they break down, alot. If you do the build-your own, you often save a little bit of money, end up with a slightly higher performance bike, and when it breaks-down you know how to fix it.
Or like building your own PC, you can spend extra money on the parts that matter to you - more RAM, good video card, high quality motherboard, fast DVD burner, a 7200RPM hard drive with a 3meg cache (instead of 5400rpm 1meg).

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I find that analogy slightly tenuous, still. The hidden assumption is possession of the necessary skill to truly "build your own" distro, not merely following instructions (which wouldn''t work with a dirt bike; you need to know what you''re doing - ditto PCs).