> > I didn't miss anything. I get what some are saying. The reason for my > > question is this. Gentoo allows a person to customize the OS to the > > specific hardware it is being run on. Redhat and other binary distros > > don't allow this, unless you compile your own packages which is no > > longer really a binary install. > > > > So, if I install Redhat on my machine, would it be less efficient than > > my Gentoo install which is customized for my hardware? Has someone else > > tested this and made it public? > > > > If people can't get this, never mind. > > I have not tested this nor seen data on this, but I'd look for > comparisons on the efficiency and gains from gcc optimizations. These > would be what benefits source-based distros on a specific system > compared to binary distros, and a benchmark made with gcc will be > simpler and easier to deal with than an os-wide benchmark.
Or the real difference maker, designing the program itself to be faster or using a really fast storage device bearing in mind any draw backs like storage space. If you use hardened Gentoo or OpenBSD or a PAE gentoo like Sabayon it may be slightly slower but more secure but you won't notice any difference when waiting for firefox to open until the second time. If you use the Gentoo hardened Tinfoil Linux you will need lots of ram and wait ages to boot but firefox will just pop up. Compiling speed, well I would just get better hardware or do distributed compiles as otherwise chances are your taking risks especially if you don't test and understand exactly what you are changing very well bearing in mind that with compilers everything may work fine 97% instead of 99% of the time. -- _______________________________________________________________________ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) _______________________________________________________________________
