Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 09:02:42PM -0200, Norberto Bensa wrote: > Gentoo has -from my point of view- only one benefit: if you're a > developer, you'll love Gentoo as every dev-dependency is already > installed. Other than that, I see none. Learning. -- Nicolas Sebrecht
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
On 3 Feb 2009, at 22:39, 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? Back in Ye Olde Days, Gentoo was as cool & popular as Ubuntu is now. This is before Ubuntu existed, but when the perception of Debian as "boring" (because package versions in stable were so old) was already fairly established. If I look at, say, Slashdot now, I see articles like "Setting Up Ubuntu On a PS3 For Emulation", "Jumping To Ubuntu At Work For Non- Linux Geeks" and "The Secret Lives of Ubuntu Users" but back before 2004.0, when the Gentoo installer disks and profiles were called 1.2 & 1.4, all the generic "using Linux" stories which happened to mention a distro by name, mentioned Gentoo. Honestly, Gentoo was in the news _all the time_ - that's how I learned about it when I was looking for a new distro (when Mandrake went bust for the second or third time). The most popular distro will naturally have the largest number of over- enthusiastic recent Linux converts, and also the largest number of idiots. Also your mom. :P So as you now regularly see blog posts or forum comments or social news stories about how "I love Ubuntu because I did this with it" or "Ubuntu's loads better than Windows because" - posts which completely ignore that the same thing could done just the same with ANY Linux distro - we used to see those comments made about Gentoo. Just as now (a minority of) people will make idiotic claims about Ubuntu, back in the day the most common over-enthusiastic claim about Gentoo was "it's so |33t - it makes your whole computer faster". A couple of posts in this thread have given genuine anecdotes which support this, but when the claimant was blatantly an idiot (which inevitably was sometimes the case) then one can see how the claim might not seem credible to an outside & independent observer. This is the background which the funroll-loops website satirised - "optimised executables" sounds just like it came from that site, and EXACTLY the sort of phrase that would've been used by a Gentoo fanboy at the time. "Performance" was another favourite word, always used blindly or with claims that the GUI felt snappier on Gentoo, rather than any actual benchmarks. I'm sure there was at least one amateur performance benchmarking article that came out at that time - showing Gentoo to be the fastest, of course - and which was immediately discredited because the competing distros used safer, more conservative defaults (for filesystem settings or something). To be honest, I am surprised this notion of "optimised executables" has stuck around long enough that you've heard it, but it's an old joke to many of us who were around in 2004. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
> Where did that bit of apocrypha come from, and why is it > parroted by so many people? Depending on what you do with the system it still can be quite true. For example, there is a known bug in the RH distro of Perl that leaves it running 10x slower than a locally compiled version. There are also quite a few packages that still come compiled with '-g', or depend on 15 shared object lib's that you don't use but now cannot turn off. If you are trying to squeeze performance out of a box then any kind of cruft will slow you down. You can also look at library-dependency hell as a form of performance hit: if you spend X hours trying to work around the library glitches it's that much dead time on the box you aren't using. -- Steven Lembark85-09 90th St. Workhorse Computing Woodhaven, NY, 11421 lemb...@wrkhors.com +1 888 359 3508
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
Grant Edwards wrote: > 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? Hi Grant, Well, the main thing for me using Gentoo is control - control of what is installed on my machines... Best regards Peter K
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
In message , 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? It is not as apocryphal as you suggest! About 9 years ago I had a couple of boxes based on AMD K6-3 processors. No distributors built binaries for the K6 architecture; when I installed SuSE on a K6 it always used base-model Pentium packages, which ensured that instruction sets such as MMX and 3DNow! were never used. The machine ran like a clogged drain. When I installed Gentoo on those boxes, about 5 years ago, it was a revelation. Everything was compiled for the K6-3 processor, thus using its full instruction repertoire. Programs that took tens of seconds to respond when installed from binary RPMs suddenly responded instantly. So, your "apocrypha" are other people's "revealed truth". ... :-) -- Regards Dave [RLU#314465] == dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon) == signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El mié, 04-02-2009 a las 11:09 +0100, Jesús Guerrero escribió: > > > > El Mie, 4 de Febrero de 2009, 0:06, Paul Hartman escribió: > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM, 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? > > > > 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. > > Not really. Compiling the things gives you control over what > dependencies will that package have. In a binary distro mplayer > will usually push like 80 or 800 (I never counted them) packages > due to the number of features that it potentially has. > > If you don't install those, then the ldd info of the binary is > broken because it can't find the needed object files outside of > mplayer. > > Compiling the packages allow you to tune CFLAGS, ok. But even if > you think that -most times- this doesn't make a difference, it's > still worth the trouble compiling it, if only for the sake of > mplayer not having to depend on 200MB of additional software for it > to install correctly. > > In gentoo, this is as easy as to set your use flags up, and then > emerge. Easy as hell, and you don't have to go ./configure'ing > with a dozen parameters every single package in your system, > because portage takes cares of that. > > I absolutely don't care much about the CFLAGS stuff, I just set > up my -march and forget about it for years. And I think that > there's a lot of point in using GEntoo, even if you have zero > interest in compiling sofware there're still a lot of reasons > why I would use Gentoo over any other Linux. > > Also, Gentoo is a great school. If you want to learn how a Linux system works, and really want to learn about Unix systems, then Gentoo is the best for you. The huge knowledge base is one of the things that make Gentoo as good as it is, and left the users without excuses when they break the system. With the power of the CPUs growing every day, the -long time compiling- idea is becoming irrelevant, this way, I see more benefits on continue using mi beloved Gentoo and feel users have less excuses to continue using other distros, but, they are free of choosing, I choose Gentoo because Gentoo lets me choose... signature.asc Description: Esta parte del mensaje está firmada digitalmente
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Mie, 4 de Febrero de 2009, 0:06, Paul Hartman escribió: > On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM, 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? > > 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. Not really. Compiling the things gives you control over what dependencies will that package have. In a binary distro mplayer will usually push like 80 or 800 (I never counted them) packages due to the number of features that it potentially has. If you don't install those, then the ldd info of the binary is broken because it can't find the needed object files outside of mplayer. Compiling the packages allow you to tune CFLAGS, ok. But even if you think that -most times- this doesn't make a difference, it's still worth the trouble compiling it, if only for the sake of mplayer not having to depend on 200MB of additional software for it to install correctly. In gentoo, this is as easy as to set your use flags up, and then emerge. Easy as hell, and you don't have to go ./configure'ing with a dozen parameters every single package in your system, because portage takes cares of that. I absolutely don't care much about the CFLAGS stuff, I just set up my -march and forget about it for years. And I think that there's a lot of point in using GEntoo, even if you have zero interest in compiling sofware there're still a lot of reasons why I would use Gentoo over any other Linux. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?
El Mar, 3 de Febrero de 2009, 23:39, Grant Edwards escribió: > 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? There are parrots in all the social groups. That doesn't mean that there aren't skilled users that see the real benefit. The difference is that skilled users (or simply those that use the system for real advantages and not due to some parrot axiom like this one) don't go echoing how normal they are all around. The result is that you only hear parrots, but that doesn't mean they are the whole nor even the majority of a given community. > 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. Yes. I wholeheartedly agree with you here. USE flags they are. And I love this part of Gentoo. > 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). Those who reinstall do it for various reasons. Some are legit (ie. migration from x86 to amd64), some are just hobbyist stuff (most of the times). And some people reinstall because they do all kind of colorful things that break the system to an unusable state. Gentoo is easy to break if you don't read the manuals and are unable to put a minimal degree of common sense behind your actions. That's the dark side of the force. However, I love it. > 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. Ditto. And upgrading is usually as easy as to use cp to created a new version. A big big advantage is that besides the huge number of packages that we have, we also have dozens of overlays. Some of which are for very specific tasks, and some of them are really bug. Performance is just as good as with any other distro, as long as both are configured in the same -read sane- way. No distro can make your pc 200% faster, only a new $$mobo-cpu-ram$$ combo can do that. -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
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 :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
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? IIRC as late as 2001 almost all distros were primarily built for i386 there were definite improvements to be had by moving to i686. For things that do complicated math like Mysql, openssl, etc there were noticeable improvements. Apache likely doesn't benefit at all from anything beyond i686, but things like video encoding/decoding do have code that can take advantage of mmx, sse, etc. Additionally when NTPL hit glibc-2.3 Gentoo was one of the first distros that let you move to a NTPL glibc which practically doubled Mysql performance in our environment. Not instruction based, but most other distros required waiting an additional six months for a release to get this. kashani
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
It is not just about higher performance. The same way you can have higher performance, the same way you can use less flags and less optimizations for a solid/stable system. You are just not bounded (most of the times) to fixed choices others doing for you.
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
On Dienstag 03 Februar 2009, 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? because it was true in the beginning, when most distris were still built for 386 and the difference of an optimized built was that you could watch dvd movies without hangs and frame loss. It is still true to a certain degree today - code compiled for 386 runs much slower than code compiled for core2 - on a core2. But on todays overpowered cpus you don't see it as prominent as back on k6-2 400 or p3 650 > AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization > is practically nil in real-world usage. nope, they are there. But compiler optimiziations are a very delicate thing. You can't just throw funroll-all-loops into make.conf and think that was it. And for a general set, march is the most important one. It does do a lot of good - the rest is just minor at best.
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
2009/2/3 Grant Edwards : > 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 guess that is because the average user doesn't know those other problems. Maybe he is used to reinstall his system every few months because he used Windows before (which was the case for me, I repeat was). Or he just reinstalls it when something fails. Also this sounds like a very strong argument. Just imagine! That shiny new CPU of yours and it wasn't running at it's full potential! But wait no more! Use Gentoo and it'll show the power of all its instructions! > > AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization > is practically nil in real-world usage. Not nil, but very very small. Maybe some 0.25 oder 0.5 frames per second in a game or 2 or 3 requests more per second for a webserver. I tried that. > > 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. You are absolutely right! > > 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). I hope mine will run as long as yours :) But I'm quite sure it will. I just love that I can pick newer packages by unkeywording them and I don't have all those library problems that I would happen with other distributions. (Which can sometimes be avoided with backports, I know, but those aren't always available...) > > 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". Hmm.. I think making an ebuild is even harder. Because you have got different combinations of USE flags and if you are a good maintainer you should check them all, if you build an rpm it is fine if it works. With 4 USE flags there are already 31 possible combinations just imagine some larger packets with ten and more USE Flags... > > 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? > I guess yes, because they just install packages from their distribution or wildly from the internet so they destroy their installation and have to reinstall anyways. And by the way, I love the slogan "Gentoo - It's all about choices" maybe it should be used more often, maybe it could beat that improved performance slogan. -- Currently developing a browsergame... http://www.p-game.de Trade - Expand - Fight Follow me at twitter! http://twitter.com/moortier
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM, 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? 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 :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
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.
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: > AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization > is practically nil in real-world usage. It used to make a difference, but not anymore with today microprocessors. > 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. maybe redhat had that problem, but others (debian based distros for example) doesn't have dep hell AFAICS (I run Debian and Ubuntu based servers and desktops) > 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, Same point. Maybe only a problem with RH. > The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more > packages available for Gentoo. Hm.. Depends on what packages you're interested. You have no commercial support if you run Gentoo from -for example- VMware. > Putting together and > maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than > putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. Maybe. I haven't tried to make a RPM package, but I tried DEB. It's almost as easy as with Gentoo. > 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? Gentoo has -from my point of view- only one benefit: if you're a developer, you'll love Gentoo as every dev-dependency is already installed. Other than that, I see none. Now, if Gentoo devs could be as kind as -for example- Ubuntu devs, that would rock. But they aren,t and so -after 7 years- I'm looking for another distro to migrate to. Kubuntu is one of my favorites. I'm testing Fedora and openSuSE. Who will win? Gentoo just doesn't make sense anymore for me - unless you're a masochist :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
> 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. More often than not, when I read that description of "Gentoo's advantage" it is meant to turn people off. Ricer, etc. - Grant > 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? > > -- > Grant Edwards grante Yow! ! Up ahead! It's a
[gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?
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? -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! ! Up ahead! It's a at DONUT HUT!! visi.com
