It's sort of inaccurate to say "if you don't want $FOO, don't use $FOO." For example, if I want to have gaim or grip, I have to install bonobo, no matter how much I dislike bonobo.
Gentoo does provide all sorts of USE flags to customize how your system is built (and the docs mention the caveat that extensive custom USE flags can make a system brittle). It does allow you to start with a very basic installation. It does teach you quite a bit about how a Linux system goes together. I don't think it is a production system. Gentoo is notorious for releasing changes without doing thorough testing (google for the apache 1.series to apache 2.series breakages), for example. On the whole it has a place, and installing a few Gentoo systems is a good learning experience...I just wouldn't run one in production. -- William Sutton On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Randall Barlow wrote: > Cristobal Palmer wrote: > > > > >I know that there are people on the list who are actively using gentoo > >in production environments, so can one of you give a more complete > >argument for why the customization is easier? > > > I don't know that I would say that the customization of Gentoo is really > easy necessarily, but *you* make the system the way *you* want it to > be. Gentoo is not for the casual user, or the new Linux convert for > sure. But the installation process is great for someone who wants to > learn more about Linux, or even computers for that matter. > > > Does a gentoo install > >start out significantly smaller? > > > YES!!! Well, I don't know how it stacks up against DSL, but it's pretty > freakin' small on a base install because that's exactly what you get > with Gentoo - a base install. You compile your kernel, install the > basic Linux tools, yada yada, reboot, and bam you're at a blinking > prompt. It's small, but you can still choose to add more (X windows, > yada yada). Of course, most any distribution will allow you to do a > stripped down install, but most of them don't compile from source. As > Jason pointed out, the USE flags are great for trimming down the > packages, and this is something you won't get with any binary based > distribution. What you will NOT trim down is install time because > compiling all those packages can take a loooong time (binaries are much > faster to install for sure). > > > Do those of you who use it know that > >you would be compiling just about everything to begin with? > > > Well, yeah, compiling these is what gives you all the flexibility. If > you don't use kde, don't compile support for kde in your apps (likewise > if you don't use gnome). For example, the machine I'm typing this on is > rather old and has no DVD drive, so I put "-dvd" in my use flags and all > programs that would otherwise support DVDs don't now. If I later get a > DVD drive, all I have to do is remove the minus in that USE flag and > emerge --update --newuse --deep world (well, and wait possibly a long > time :)) and bam, DVD support. The same goes for compiling your own > kernel. Of course you can do this in any distribution, but the point is > that Gentoo is made with customization in mind! > > > Give me > >some arguments that'll inspire me to give gentoo a shot on _my_ old > >clunker laptop. > > > > > How about trying it as a challenge to learn new stuff? Seriously, I > learned a lot just in the install process. I do actually use it on my > $WORK machine as well (a Sun workstation), and it's been good for that > as well. I suppose I'd say that Gentoo is a good "hobbyist" Linux > distribution though. Sometimes you just need your machine to work with > no hassles, and you may not get that very easily with Gentoo. But if > you're interested in learning a lot, and you have an old clunker and > some free time, give it a whirl! > > -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
