James Youngman wrote: > I really do not intend to give offence by asking this question, but > how do you reconcile the two statements you make below? > > On 4/17/06, Adam Waltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Gentoo is all about getting the source and compiling things on my > > computer using gcc settings appropriate for my system (and so on... > > :-)), > > [...] > > > I have no real experience in programming in Linux, > > Perhaps I just don't understand enough about how Gentoo is supposed to work... > > Curiously,
Gentoo is in some ways similar to the "Linux From Scratch" project. Gentoo has a "ports" system similar to BSD. It is designed to automate the compilation of source into binaries without user intervention. This allows users without any programing experience to build a system from source without knowing how to compile a program. They don't actually ever run tar xzf, ./configure or make or other build commands as is typical today to compile software from source. They never invoke an editor to adjust a file. Instead they run "emerge" and that command handles the details. With every package is a recipe to handle the details. At least in the early days Gentoo claimed it received a performance advantage because every package was compiled with the maximum optimization for the present hardware. Also many options are available to enable or disable subsystems such that if you don't want foo on the machine then configure everything to avoid it. Think PAM and Kerberos and other such things. Every installation is fully custom. It is claimed that people install a new gcc version and then recompile every binary on the system with the new compiler. Gentoo is notorious for taking many hours of machine time to compile the system to get a fresh installation. Bob _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
