On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Grant Edwards <gra...@visi.com> 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?
I've never done any benchmarks on my system of i386 vs core2 or anything like that... I think the fact that gentoo allows you to control compiler flags which can potentially give you speedups is more of it. But, like you, building from source is kind of a side-effect of Gentoo and not the reason why. Compiling for the sake of compiling is just a waste of time, and that's why a lot of people say "Just use Ubuntu" or whatever. > AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization > is practically nil in real-world usage. I can't say, but it "feels right" to use things tuned for your specific hardware, even if it's meaningless. And some things like running 64-bit vs 32-bit definitely makes a difference. But, absolutely, the time spent compiling for core2 versus installing a binary package for i586 is never going to be worth it. > 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. I agree completely. Portage and the lack of dependency nightmares (usually :) ) is so nice. Things like live SVN ebuilds are so simple to maintain, rather than building binary snapshots etc. I'm a 4-year or so Gentoo user, and have donated money, and using redhat at work is always a nightmare when I'm used to the flexibility of Gentoo :)
