Gentoo or Arch for me?

Jayem · 2008-09-10 16:37:40

Hi guys!

I was wondering if using Gentoo would provide me with better performance compared to Arch Linux. I have a P6 based chip (Intel Core Duo) so the i686 optimization of Arch Linux and packages will be of value to me, correct? So what would be the point in manually compiling packages on Gentoo, would I get any performance increases (this isn't including any compiler tags/optimizations).

I don't want to spend a lot of time compiling packages when I can get the same speed from pre-compiled packages in the Arch Linux repositories.

I'm wanting a speedy and responsive system in the end, no bloat or unneccessary crap what so ever so that's why I've narrowed it down to both Arch Linux and Gentoo.

Thanks,
John

moljac024 · 2008-09-10 16:54:24

I've never used Gentoo myself, but I do believe that others who have will tell you that there is no speed difference.

But really, the best answer to these kinds of questions is to try them both yourself. You'll even learn more that way and see first-hand what suits you best

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-09-10 16:54:38)

Misfit138 · 2008-09-10 16:58:00

There will be no notable difference in performance at all.
Unless, you over-optimize Gentoo, in which case Arch will be noticeably faster.

Jayem · 2008-09-10 17:08:10

Ha ha, cheers!

I think I know what to use/try now.

floke · 2008-09-10 17:21:18

No speed difference for me.
You can compile all your stuff from source on Arch too - although, again, there's no noticeable difference.
See here: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=48957

czar · 2008-09-10 18:05:18

Post the same question on the gentoo forums and you'll get a ton of people who swear by their optimizations.

.:B:. · 2008-09-10 18:24:34

Misfit138 wrote:

Unless, you over-optimize Gentoo, in which case Arch will be noticeably faster.

[Edit: P6 seems to be the P!!! line, so I didn't say anything about that]

If you want to get the most of your hardware, squeeze every last bit of power out of it, and compiling time doesn't matter, then go Gentoo. If not, go Arch. The packages where it really matters - the multimedia packages - are the ones you could optimise, if you want, but usually optimising your whole system makes no sense on a powerful present-day rig (which any Core 2 Duo is).

Last edited by B (2008-09-10 19:42:09)

kensai · 2008-09-10 18:24:39

I really like Gentoo, It was my distribution of choice before Arch Linux. But is true, there is no notable difference in performance for some systems, I think there are certain kind of systems that do can benefit from Gentoo. I just like the compile your own kernel, that approach also used by CRUX and some others. I don't like distributions that ship a full blown stock kernel, well, Arch is the only distribution I like which does that. But well, I don't like Gentoo packages being as outdated as they are most of the time either. So overall, I prefer Arch Linux now.

floke · 2008-09-10 18:55:31

I spent ages getting my Gentoo up and running, only to discover that OOo kept crashing - a known problem, but a deal-breaker for me. Shame really, 'cos I liked Gentoo a lot.

ozar · 2008-09-10 19:49:04

Gentoo or Arch for me?

I've successfully installed Gentoo 7 or 8 times in the past but never could stick with it because it was so time intensive.

However, I recommend trying both, Gentoo and Arch, then making up your own mind which one is for you.

Best of luck with your experimenting.

jdhore · 2008-09-10 21:03:39

A friend of mine (georgia_tech_swagger on these forums) was running Gentoo and he recently switched to Arch. In his tests (he didn't go overboard with cflags and just used a MARCH=pentium4), the performance difference between Gentoo and Arch was a statistical dead heat. Also with that fact is the amount of time you have to spend to compile everything

Where people claim Gentoo shines, although you can do the same thing with the ABS is in USE flags, but in my opinion, i don't think USE flags optimize all that much and if you forget a USE flag and need it later, you have to recompile the whole application which is a pain.

haxit · 2008-09-10 21:16:10

Of course most people are going to say arch. Its kinda bias. But yeah, try both and see which one you like.

Misfit138 · 2008-09-10 21:23:23

ozar wrote:

I recommend trying both, Gentoo and Arch, then making up your own mind which one is for you.
Best of luck with your experimenting.

I agree, of course. The only way to tell which appeals to you more is to try both.

X/ax · 2008-09-10 22:25:43

I kind of agree with most people here: gentoo won't be notably faster, and the time put in it will be too much even it it were notably faster.
However, to try both is the best option (although more time consuming), it'll give you great insights on what arch is, and what gentoo is.
In the end, you might even decide to like gentoo because it teaches you a lot.

sand_man · 2008-09-10 23:47:35

I have to admit, I like to compile my own software but I just don't have the time anymore. Arch is perfect for me.

Acecero · 2008-09-11 02:56:29

There wouldn't be any point to compiling packages without opitimization of USE flags in Gentoo. Unless you want the absolute full control of the set of features that you want for certain packages that you install and have the time to do it, Gentoo is there for you. If you just compile everything without that usage, it makes no difference to have fast the apps run compared to i686 optimize packages. So otherwise go with Arch. If you have the need to compile, use the ABS or create your own PKGBUILDs to make your own custom packages.

dav7 · 2008-09-11 05:03:48

Misfit138 wrote:

Unless, you over-optimize Gentoo, in which case Arch will be noticeably faster.

I know what that's like... I over-optimized my pacman cache in my last install... I'm so glad I broke my system accidentally, because pacman is just so much faster now. I actually forgot about how slow it used to be until I read that

But yeah, to the OP, from what I've said, distro-hopping can be good. When I get a new PC and some diskspace I can shake a fist at, I plan to do a little hopping myself (well, if you can call "installing 6 or 12 distros at once" distro-hopping) and then I'll see what I really like.

So try out what you think will work for you - it's the only way to refine your choices down to a single candidate.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-09-11 05:04:20)

X/ax · 2008-09-11 09:29:42

dav7 wrote:

Misfit138 wrote:
Unless, you over-optimize Gentoo, in which case Arch will be noticeably faster.
I know what that's like... I over-optimized my pacman cache in my last install... I'm so glad I broke my system accidentally, because pacman is just so much faster now. I actually forgot about how slow it used to be until I read that
But yeah, to the OP, from what I've said, distro-hopping can be good. When I get a new PC and some diskspace I can shake a fist at, I plan to do a little hopping myself (well, if you can call "installing 6 or 12 distros at once" distro-hopping) and then I'll see what I really like.
So try out what you think will work for you - it's the only way to refine your choices down to a single candidate.
-dav7

You might want to create some statistics on that distro-hopping, regarding: Install time, initial boot time, etc...
I think it would be an interesting item for newcomers to read

Zeist · 2008-09-11 10:35:55

I still run Gentoo on a few servers in my home network. I really like Gentoo, and of course compiling something absolutely optimized for your computer will make the code run a little more efficient. The problem is that the difference is generally smaller the newer system you have as the time it takes to execute a part of a piece of software will be smaller and as such shaving a small percent off it will make a much smaller difference on a modern machine than on an ancient computer.

As such I think that the speed difference between Gentoo and Arch on modern systems is generally negligible unless we're talking about incredibly high-pressured systems where every tiny shred of performance counts.

IncredibleLaser · 2008-09-11 11:18:47

I don't think the speed difference between compiling optimized and the pre-built packages will be great; I once tested this with LAME on my Core Duo and it was 13 times faster than realtime (for the prebuilt) against 14 times realtime for my optimized build, and I only used "sane" CFLAGS (-O2 -march=$CODENAMEIFORGOT). It might be even less for 64bit-systems as the architecture is rather young. But I still compile many packages from source, as I don't want a certain feature sometimes or I do want one the packager did not include. Or I want a newer version of a program than is available, so I just edit the PKGBUILD from ABS. It's never bad to know which features you are installing.

EDIT: I just tested it and on my CPU, it was 17,5x against 16x realtime (or 19 instead of 21 seconds encoding time).

Last edited by IncredibleLaser (2008-09-11 11:38:42)

Misfit138 · 2008-09-11 12:11:57

Acecero wrote:

There wouldn't be any point to compiling packages without opitimization of USE flags in Gentoo. Unless you want the absolute full control of the set of features that you want for certain packages that you install and have the time to do it, Gentoo is there for you. If you just compile everything without that usage, it makes no difference to have fast the apps run compared to i686 optimize packages. So otherwise go with Arch. If you have the need to compile, use the ABS or create your own PKGBUILDs to make your own custom packages.

Do you consider USE flags as optimizations?
I don't. I wonder if Gentoo users generally consider them as such.
Regardless, I can't think of any USE flags, nor combination thereof, that would 'increase performance'.

kensai · 2008-09-11 12:19:17

Nah, USE flags are not optimizations, generally speaking, but they do a good job at customizing your environment of work. That is a plus, the system is customized to your needs, nothing more, just what you need, is what you get. Still, Arch is the way.

Misfit138 · 2008-09-11 12:23:04

Misfit138 wrote:

There will be no notable difference in performance at all.
Unless, you over-optimize Gentoo, in which case Arch will be noticeably faster.

CFLAGS="-s -static -O3 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fgcse-sm 
-fgcse-las -fsched-spec-load -fsched2-use-superblocks -fsched2-use-traces 
-freschedule-modulo-scheduled-loops -ftracer -funroll-loops 
-fvariable-expansion-in-unroller -freorder-blocks-and-partition -fweb 
-ffast-math -fpeel-loops -fmove-loop-invariants -fbranch-target-load-optimize 
-fbranch-target-load-optimize2 -fbtr-bb-exclusive -mfpmath=sse 
-mfpmath=sse,387 -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -D__NO_MATH_INLINES"

ZOOM-ZOOM!!

jb · 2008-09-11 13:10:25

So, to summarize your cflags:

Jayem · 2008-09-11 15:36:09

I'm going to try Arch first and get it up and running to my liking. I will perhaps try Gentoo when I have more time (I hear it takes quite a long time to compile everything for a fully functional, graphically based desktop). The only problem I have is lack of time.

Thanks again guys!

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-10 16:37:40

Gentoo or Arch for me?

#2 2008-09-10 16:54:24

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#3 2008-09-10 16:58:00

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#4 2008-09-10 17:08:10

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#5 2008-09-10 17:21:18

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#6 2008-09-10 18:05:18

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#7 2008-09-10 18:24:34

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#8 2008-09-10 18:24:39

Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#9 2008-09-10 18:55:31

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#10 2008-09-10 19:49:04

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#12 2008-09-10 21:16:10

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Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

#14 2008-09-10 22:25:43

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Re: Gentoo or Arch for me?

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