Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

McQueen · 2006-06-29 20:22:45

EAD wrote:

Ok, So what can I learn more with Gentoo that in ARCH I can't?

Portage.

There is no such thing as a Linux flavor which can not be used to learn on and with. It is true that some tend to be more open than others via documentation, system configuration methods, community channels, installation procedures, and so forth. But this absolutely does not mean that an individual still can't learn alot about Linux on just about any distro.

I think one of the key issues which is often overlooked in these discussions is that distros use varying means and resources to educate their user base about how the system operates and the particular conventions which are relevant, and people frequently tend to find some of these methods more to their liking than others. Because of this they can and often do adapt more easily to learn things in certain environments, which might not be duplicated in another distro as well or to the extent they are accustomed.

That does not equate to distro-X is better to learn on than distro-Y as a blanket statement. For example, I know people who have never used anything but SuSE (not your typical selection for learning about Linux), and are _far_ more advanced in Linux/GNU understanding and proficiency than the many of people I see within some of the more "advanced" distro development outlets.

ozar · 2006-06-29 20:30:46

EAD wrote:

Is it worth to make all the time need to learn a new distro and put Gentoo in my system?

Some might say it's worth the time and effort while others will say it's not, so only you can decide whether or not it's really worth it to you. Give it a go and see for yourself. I like Gentoo, but have found it far too time intensive for my tastes. You, however, might find it to be just your cup of tea.

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-29 20:50:40

EAD wrote:

Ok, So what can I learn more with Gentoo that in ARCH I can't?

How to deal with SystemV initscripts and config files.

Bison · 2006-06-29 20:55:48

Speaking of problems with optimisation. [When installing gentoo] I couldn't compile the kernel with the recommended optimisation, everything would just lock up after a while. Eventually i compiled it with i686, and then I found arch.

Borosai · 2006-06-29 21:21:27

And although Portage is very good, it has a simple problem that just wastes time...if you uninstall a package, all of its dependencies will be removed as well, whether they are required by another program or not. Then you have to run revdep rebuild to reinstall these dependencies. That makes no sense...and as far as I know, that hasn't been fixed (although I haven't checked in the past month or so). Arch handles that better, which is very nice and convenient.

But like someone else said, try it...if you like it or don't like it, it doesn't matter...just find things you like and use them (including more than 1 distro....there are no rules against that)

phrakture · 2006-06-29 21:28:02

My biggest problem with gentoo is the same thing most people consider the biggest boon: USE flags. Let me explain...

Let's assume I want a pure console system. I remove all the USE="gtk" and whatnot from the flags, and install what I want. We'll do a case study on vim. Alright vim is installed. Oh, now I want to add X and have a graphical system. I add USE="gtk" back in, but let's assume I didn't reinstall vim. It will work fine in a terminal, but some important features are missing. xterm-clipboard? nope, no way to copy into X from terminal vim. Hmm, gvim? recompile it all.

Under a binary distro, the move from one setup like this to another is easy. Want all the X features for vim? pacman -S gvim. Not only do you get gvim, but your vim app now supports all the X features (thanks to neri for the awesome symlink moving in that package).

Not only that, but unless you know every use flag and can predict the future pretty well, you're going to miss some important feature because of a missing flag, and then will have to recompile a huge subset of what's installed. Add in a USE="python" (if that exists...) and half your software has to be recompiled to support python bindings.

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-29 23:17:05

Borosai wrote:

And although Portage is very good, it has a simple problem that just wastes time...if you uninstall a package, all of its dependencies will be removed as well, whether they are required by another program or not. Then you have to run revdep rebuild to reinstall these dependencies. That makes no sense...and as far as I know, that hasn't been fixed (although I haven't checked in the past month or so). Arch handles that better, which is very nice and convenient.

That's weird... Last time I used Portage, it didn't uninstall dependencies, at least IIRC. But uninstalling dependencies even if something else depends on them... Yeah, that's a bug alright. :shock:

Borosai · 2006-06-29 23:48:36

That's weird... Last time I used Portage, it didn't uninstall dependencies, at least IIRC. But uninstalling dependencies even if something else depends on them... Yeah, that's a bug alright. :shock:

Sorry, my mistake. :oops:

The dependencies in fact do remain, whether they are used or not. If you want to remove the orphaned dependencies (to keep your system clean), then you have to remove them all with emerge --depclean, followed by revdep-rebuild to re-install the ones that are still needed.

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-30 01:23:35

Thanks... That still qualifies as a bug though IMHO. Removing dependencies should not force removal of deps that are still needed, unless that is specified...

deficite · 2006-06-30 03:58:57

Dusty wrote:

Hey everyone, we interrupt this program with a thank you message from your psychotic neighborhood forum advisor:
This topic had a great potential to turn into a massive flamewar. I want to congratulate the entire community on making it to two pages without nasty conflict, and to encourage further discussion to continue in this helpful vein. You guys rock!
Dusty

STUPID PORTAGE N LIEK GENPOO N STUFF! GENPOO IS TEH GHEY N EVERBODY WHO USES IT IS TEH GHEY! USE A REEL OS LIEK OMFG MACINTOSH! LOLZ NOOB

GET OFF THE INTERNET

clarence · 2006-06-30 06:36:35

Gullible Jones wrote:

Gentoo is good for learning the ropes, Slackware is better.)

I would agree. I keep forgetting about slack.

sweiss · 2006-06-30 08:47:49

I used Gentoo for a very little period. I did not notice any speed differences, and even if there was, it was not worth the overhead of compiling. I also hated running etc-update. It did not do anything special to my configuration files, and even if it did, it was not worth the overhead of going through them manually, one by one.

USE flags? I don't have enough energy to mess with customizing my system, I just want something to work with, and something I can tinker with ease when tinkering is needed.

Ebuilds - these serve the same purpose of PKGBUILDs. To me they were far more complicated. I couln't understand them back then. I understood PKGBUILDs at first glance.

In my opinion, your system should work for you, and not the other way around. It should provide the necessary tools for fine-tuning, of course. I don't think Gentoo works for its user. Arch does.

EAD · 2006-06-30 08:53:11

I love the comments you guys indicate here, a great topic:)

forkboy · 2006-06-30 11:05:13

The dependencies in fact do remain, whether they are used or not. If you want to remove the orphaned dependencies (to keep your system clean), then you have to remove them all with emerge --depclean, followed by revdep-rebuild to re-install the ones that are still needed.

I like emerge --depclean, isn't there something like this in arch, for example if I wanted to remove amule and then everything it needed that nothing else needs?

mucknert · 2006-06-30 12:31:15

Even though it will sound like a lame flame I'm going to write it anyway: Gentoo doesn't necessarily provide any knowledge at all. Let's face it: Gentoo has an excellent documentation. If you follow that, you can hardly go wrong in installing and setting it up. But does that mean that you understand what you do? By no means, if you ask me. Following "orders" and understanding what I just did is a whole world of difference. Of course the same applies to Arch: if you just do what's in the Wiki without understanding a bit of it you might get your Box to work but you wont know what to do in case of a problem that's not discussed in the documentation. That's the point where a lot of help-vampires are created, if you catch my drift.

I'm not biased against Gentoo. I'm sure it has its uses and when people like and adopt it it's fine. Just my two cents. Even if it was, perhaps, a little bit out of order of the other comments.

mucknert · 2006-06-30 12:32:50

forkboy wrote:

The dependencies in fact do remain, whether they are used or not. If you want to remove the orphaned dependencies (to keep your system clean), then you have to remove them all with emerge --depclean, followed by revdep-rebuild to re-install the ones that are still needed.
I like emerge --depclean, isn't there something like this in arch, for example if I wanted to remove amule and then everything it needed that nothing else needs?

Actually, there is. First there is the pacman-inherent orphan-switch to find such packages and then there is a nice perl-script that does the same a lot better. You can find it on the bbs, too.

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-30 12:51:20

forkboy wrote:

The dependencies in fact do remain, whether they are used or not. If you want to remove the orphaned dependencies (to keep your system clean), then you have to remove them all with emerge --depclean, followed by revdep-rebuild to re-install the ones that are still needed.
I like emerge --depclean, isn't there something like this in arch, for example if I wanted to remove amule and then everything it needed that nothing else needs?

Yes there is, and it's not a script - 'pacman -Rsn'. Or 'pacman -Rscn' if you want to remove a package, all its dependencies, and their reverse dependencies.So, if you wanted to remove amule and *everything* that it needed which nothing else needed, you'd do 'pacman -Rsn amule'. Try 'man pacman' for more neat stuff.

(Note that both of the above commands also remove any config files associated with the removed packages. If you want to have backups of those files for later, drop the 'n'.)

forkboy · 2006-06-30 13:23:52

Yes there is, and it's not a script - 'pacman -Rsn'. Or 'pacman -Rscn' if you want to remove a package, all its dependencies, and their reverse dependencies.So, if you wanted to remove amule and *everything* that it needed which nothing else needed, you'd do 'pacman -Rsn amule'. Try 'man pacman' for more neat stuff.
(Note that both of the above commands also remove any config files associated with the removed packages. If you want to have backups of those files for later, drop the 'n'.)

OK great so I guess if I do pacman -Rsn everytime I remove something I'll be fine, thanks for your help guys.

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-30 14:00:51

Unless you want to preserve the config files in which case you leave out the 'n'...

(I'll say again, reading the man pages is a good idea. Pacman can do a lot of things, it pays to know about all of them...)

kensai · 2006-06-30 15:01:44

Just to clear some mistaken things:
Use Flags go against the KISS philosophy? What The....??? I find it pretty simple that I say well I don't need this or that I don't want my package pull those dependencies.

Arch Way: pacman -S mplayer will get me a bloated mplayer with gtk1 and glib1 which I have a newer version of them and I don't need a gui for mplayer and don't want it since I just use the mplayerplug-in.

Gentoo Way: emerge USE="-gtk -xmms" mplayer will get me a non bloated mplayer without gtk1 or glib1 which I don't need and gives me no GUI for mplayer like I wanted just to use mplayerplug-in.

Which is getting more into the KISS way?
Well I think Gentoo. But don't get me wrong like I always say I love Arch just that people have a twisted idea of what Gentoo is.

EAD : Go ahead and try Gentoo it's worth it.

phrakture · 2006-06-30 15:42:50

deficite wrote:

GET OFF THE INTERNET

Gullible Jones · 2006-06-30 15:45:45

kensai wrote:

Just to clear some mistaken things:
Use Flags go against the KISS philosophy? What The....??? I find it pretty simple that I say well I don't need this or that I don't want my package pull those dependencies.

Think of how gnarly the PKGBUILDs would get if they had to implement USE flags.

Arch Way: pacman -S mplayer will get me a bloated mplayer with gtk1 and glib1 which I have a newer version of them and I don't need a gui for mplayer and don't want it since I just use the mplayerplug-in.

Not any more, as of the current version you get nice GTK2 menus. And MPlayer is not at all difficult to compile yourself without the GUI.

Gentoo Way: emerge USE="-gtk -xmms" mplayer will get me a non bloated mplayer without gtk1 or glib1 which I don't need and gives me no GUI for mplayer like I wanted just to use mplayerplug-in.

It gives you MPlayer with a GTK2 interface courtesy of amazing patchwork by the Gentoo developers, at least last time I tried it... As far as I know the "-xmms" flag doesn't even fit in with that. But perhaps things have changed more than I know.

Which is getting more into the KISS way?
Well I think Gentoo. But don't get me wrong like I always say I love Arch just that people have a twisted idea of what Gentoo is.

On the surface, the Gentoo way looks simpler. If you look at the implementation, you'll find that the Arch method is the simpler one, even if it takes a little more effort to use. Compare an ebuild and a PKGBUILD for the same package and you will get the idea.

(I'm not saying that the Gentoo method is bad; it isn't. However, it is a lot less simple to implement, and more prone to annoying little problems due to its complexity. It works great with Gentoo, but for a binary distro like Arch, it would be an unnecessary nuisance.)

EAD · 2006-06-30 16:54:53

I admit, that even I after just few time Tried and Succsed compiling my own Mplayer with out any problem in ARCH, yeah its an easy one, and PKGBUILD is very KISS style.
Althought I think maybe there is a place for improvment like in Gentoo flags

Sigi · 2006-06-30 17:15:41

What kind of improvement? The one that increases the speed of your system about 2% but makes it less stable? No thanks...

kensai · 2006-06-30 17:53:49

Gullible Jones wrote:

But perhaps things have changed more than I know.

Yeah since half of what you wrote has nothing to do with my point.

Sigi wrote:

What kind of improvement? The one that increases the speed of your system about 2% but makes it less stable? No thanks...

Please next time give a valid argument to refute something that is valid. You know the myth that people use Gentoo for speed is long gone. This has been proven and even Gentoo users don't like people who come to Gentoo because they want a faster system.

Arch Linux

#26 2006-06-29 20:22:45

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#27 2006-06-29 20:30:46

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#28 2006-06-29 20:50:40

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#29 2006-06-29 20:55:48

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#30 2006-06-29 21:21:27

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#31 2006-06-29 21:28:02

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#32 2006-06-29 23:17:05

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#33 2006-06-29 23:48:36

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#34 2006-06-30 01:23:35

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#35 2006-06-30 03:58:57

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#36 2006-06-30 06:36:35

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#37 2006-06-30 08:47:49

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#38 2006-06-30 08:53:11

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#39 2006-06-30 11:05:13

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#40 2006-06-30 12:31:15

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#41 2006-06-30 12:32:50

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#42 2006-06-30 12:51:20

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#43 2006-06-30 13:23:52

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#44 2006-06-30 14:00:51

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#45 2006-06-30 15:01:44

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#46 2006-06-30 15:42:50

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#47 2006-06-30 15:45:45

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#48 2006-06-30 16:54:53

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#49 2006-06-30 17:15:41

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

#50 2006-06-30 17:53:49

Re: Is it worth the hustle to move to Gentoo ?

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