gentoo to arch - good to see

dtw · 2005-09-26 08:41:27

cactus wrote:

arch has some serious issues right now

Yeah, massive criticism here then - when every other project in the world has serious issues they say "We have serious issues." Here at Arch no-one says anything - total disinformation!

cactus · 2005-09-26 15:27:25

??!!
Language barrier alert. I totally didn't understand your post dibble. Can you please attempt to rephrase so my feeble brain can parse it?

luceroz · 2005-10-09 19:22:51

i was a gentoo user for a long time on my laptop. it is a wonderful distro that, once i get my desktop back up, i will run it again.

but on my laptop, i was sick of leaving the poor thing on all night compiling Xorg or something. after trying arch and realizing that it was, for all practical purposes, just as fast, i kept it on my laptop, and i am never going back.

i installed arch in the better half of 45 minutes (ftp install), an spent all of 15min configuring everything (i mean EVERYTHING).

the rc.d concept is new to me, but so far it is working just ifine -- i love the simplicity.

good job to those involved with development.

and also: every distro has its issues, unless i guess if you buy enterprise redhat, and have some guy come out and be your personal technology bitch. as long as its not Ubuntu (personal reasons) then its probably a decent distro.

ilmorris · 2005-11-16 00:27:53

I used Gentoo since the 1.4 days when a friend of mine introduced me to it. I still use it on my older 586 systems.

That same friend introduced me to Archlinux about 8 months ago. I've wavered between Gentoo and Arch since then. Waivering only because of my lack of knowledge with Archlinux. Since I've read and found more information regarding the ABS, Makepkg, and adding other repos to pacman.conf. So, for the last few months my main system has been happily chugging away with Arch. Gentoo is a great distro. I still enjoy working with it. But for my day-to-day desktop, Archlinux and pacman has relieved me from having my system offline for hours so I could complete security updates because of the re-compile times.

Vive La Archlinux - Great Distro, Great Community. Keep up the great work.

jondkent · 2005-11-21 21:32:08

I still use Gentoo @ work, mainly because its setup perfectly for me and its on all the time so I leave it compiling when I go home. However at home is Arch on my main workstation, Slack on my server (too much hassle to move it - lazy me ) and PCBSD on my of portables to play with.

Also at work I look after a load of Red Hat ES machines.

I like both Arch and Gentoo, hate Red Hat (had no choice there) and rpm. However I will say that I find both pacman and emerge a bit slow when you're doing searches. I'd guess emerge is suffering as its using Python, but pacman seems to be a C program (?) so not sure why that would be. For all its crappiness rpm search is very fast.

Jon

T-Dawg · 2005-11-21 22:24:35

jondkent wrote:

However I will say that I find both pacman and emerge a bit slow when you're doing searches. I'd guess emerge is suffering as its using Python, but pacman seems to be a C program (?) so not sure why that would be.

Last I knew gentoo uses flat files as does arch for its database. The problem with this is that overtime the files themselves get spread out through the hard drive as they are added (not file fragmentation).
I hardly doubt python is the reason why emerge is seemingly slow to you. It sounds like a database spread in your system. Try running pacman-optimize and see if that speeds up searches.

yoshi314 · 2005-11-23 10:03:04

i'm an active gentooist myself. i tried arch couple of times but i haven't tried it for real. now i did, mostly because i happened to accidentaly format my entire HD so i decided it's time to check things up.

i've been stuck with gentoo for a year and i miss tons of things in arch that gentoo has. as well as the other way around.

gentoo has
- source installs with dependency management. it's a pain using abs in arch (you don't have this this this this this and this. DIY)
- source install scripts are more flexible. compilation flags can be changed with USE="(...)" variable. you don't want svg in firefox? fine USE="-svg" emerge mozilla-firefox . in arch you have to dig through those pkgbuild files and edit them by hand.
- kernel installation is better. there is genkernel which builds typical kernel, like in arch. and there is a normal kernel install which simply throws kernel sources to /usr/src, and optionally makes a /usr/src/linux symlink
- additional kernel modules are way easier to install. and there are tons of them, right in portage.
- portage has tons of software. and even more tons of software packages that install themselves off cvs/svn. i have trouble finding my favorite apps in archlinux (bmpx, xmms2)
- when a system gets borked due to the incompatibility of a new version of library (DirectFB especially, change to 0.9.24 causes a lot of mess), it's a matter of one script to rebuild everything that depends on it.
- neat initscript system, with convenient rc-update tool
- you can have multiple gcc/binutils/java versions in your system and easily switch between them
- more unstable software (deer park, e17 off cvs at any time, modular x.org etc etc)
- modular kde is way easy to install (split packages)

arch has
- package manager written in C with minimal dependencies
- simple source build system abs
- simplicity
- finding orphaned packages (that's what i really like in pacman, portage doesn't have that yet)
- better uninstalling of packages (pacman -R kde removes whole kde, which is exactly what i would expect from such command)
- low overhead when installing package (it takes some time to calculate deps with portage, and to finish. it's kinda sluggish)
- obviously packages take less time to install

however being with gentoo makes me really annoyed with arch, since there are things i cannot get used to - like having almost no influence on dependencies (i *hate* arts in kde, i want my mplayer with aalib, caca, directfb, i definitely must have sylpheed-claws off cvs, since it's so different from stable), and source builds are not as convenient as i have expected them to be. (i thought i could just, like abs --build e17-cvs and voila . but i have to install every component manually)

well that's my two cents.

yoshi314 · 2005-11-23 10:03:35

i'm an active gentooist myself. i tried arch couple of times but i haven't tried it for real. now i did, mostly because i happened to accidentaly format my entire HD so i decided it's time to check things up.

i've been stuck with gentoo for a year and i miss tons of things in arch that gentoo has. as well as the other way around.

gentoo has
- source installs with dependency management. it's a pain using abs in arch (you don't have this this this this this and this. DIY)
- source install scripts are more flexible. compilation flags can be changed with USE="(...)" variable. you don't want svg in firefox? fine USE="-svg" emerge mozilla-firefox . in arch you have to dig through those pkgbuild files and edit them by hand.
- kernel installation is better. there is genkernel which builds typical kernel, like in arch. and there is a normal kernel install which simply throws kernel sources to /usr/src, and optionally makes a /usr/src/linux symlink. and you can tinker with it to your heart content. and there are many patchsets for kernels, available in the same manner.
- additional kernel modules are way easier to install. and there are tons of them, right in portage.
- portage has tons of software. and even more tons of software packages that install themselves off cvs/svn. i have trouble finding my favorite apps in archlinux (bmpx, xmms2)
- when a system gets borked due to the incompatibility of a new version of library (DirectFB especially, change to 0.9.24 causes a lot of mess), it's a matter of one script to rebuild everything that depends on it.
- neat initscript system, with convenient rc-update tool
- you can have multiple gcc/binutils/java versions in your system and easily switch between them
- more unstable software (deer park, e17 off cvs at any time, modular x.org etc etc)
- modular kde is way easy to install (split packages)
- 99.9% ebuilds (package install scripts) work

arch has
- package manager written in C with minimal dependencies
- simple source build system abs
- simplicity
- finding orphaned packages (that's what i really like in pacman, portage doesn't have that yet)
- better uninstalling of packages (pacman -R kde removes whole kde, which is exactly what i would expect from such command)
- low overhead when installing package (it takes some time to calculate deps with portage, and to finish. it's kinda sluggish)
- obviously packages take less time to install
- many packages are incorrect, and refuse to install

however being with gentoo makes me really annoyed with arch, since there are things i cannot get used to - like having almost no influence on dependencies (i *hate* arts in kde, i want my mplayer with aalib, caca, directfb, i definitely must have sylpheed-claws off cvs, since it's so different from stable), and source builds are not as convenient as i have expected them to be. (i thought i could just, like abs --build e17-cvs and voila . but i have to install every component manually)

well that's my two cents.

arooaroo · 2005-11-23 14:30:45

yoshi314 wrote:

arch has
- package manager written in C with minimal dependencies

That's an advantage?

Everyone to their own, of course, but I thought that Gentoo's emerge system was pretty darn good and was written in Python. It's hardly slow. Pacman may be written in C but takes ages because of its inefficient approach of having lots and lots of small files.

I think that if pacman used a higher level language like Python then it would be promote more innovation. Why is it that libpypac has been around for ages, and libpacman (or whatever it's name is) is still not through the door yet?

Anyway, regarding the rest of your post: it's true, the flexibility that Gentoo affords is impressive. As meta-distros go, I think it's really strong. I must admit, I soon realised that all the fiddling with USE flags didn't really justify the hours and hours of compiling. As a matter of principal, then yes, I would prefer KDE to be compiled without certain things. But, does it really make a difference? Hmm.. not really.

Gentoo is great at satisfying your piece of mind. You know it's optimal because you've not compiled in all the unwanted features; you've tweaked it to make the most of your processor and added loads of obscure GCC switches. However, the optimal, in my experience, turned out not to be perceivably quicker than "sub"-optimal distros like Arch.

At the end of the day, the way to get a quick system is to optimise disk IO. Get yourself a good kernel setup, a decent filesystem, and some experimenting with hdparm. In half an hour you can accomplish more than you can with a weekends' worth of compiling with Gentoo.

stavrosg · 2005-11-23 14:43:00

Hello!
Some things could be better, but its not so messy as they appear in your post:

yoshi314 wrote:

gentoo has
- source installs with dependency management. it's a pain using abs in arch (you don't have this this this this this and this. DIY)

makepkg -b

builds the package's dependecied from abs if they do not exist in the system.
If you don't want to build everything, you may use

makepkg -s

to fetch the needed packages from the repositories.
And there is makepkg's manpage ;-)

- source install scripts are more flexible. compilation flags can be changed with USE="(...)" variable. you don't want svg in firefox? fine USE="-svg" emerge mozilla-firefox . in arch you have to dig through those pkgbuild files and edit them by hand.
- kernel installation is better. there is genkernel which builds typical kernel, like in arch. and there is a normal kernel install which simply throws kernel sources to /usr/src, and optionally makes a /usr/src/linux symlink. and you can tinker with it to your heart content. and there are many patchsets for kernels, available in the same manner.

Just change a line in the kernel PKGBUILD . customize through *config!

- portage has tons of software. and even more tons of software packages that install themselves off cvs/svn. i have trouble finding my favorite apps in archlinux (bmpx, xmms2)

Let me introduce you to AUR. BMPx-svn is there. xmms2, too. You could ask in the forums etc, too. Or Search.

- when a system gets borked due to the incompatibility of a new version of library (DirectFB especially, change to 0.9.24 causes a lot of mess), it's a matter of one script to rebuild everything that depends on it.

I'd like to see something like that, too.

- neat initscript system, with convenient rc-update tool

Arch's initscripts are simple and convenient, too. And it doesn't mess with your configuration scripts, but leaves you in charge of the system breakage

- more unstable software (deer park, e17 off cvs at any time, modular x.org etc etc)

I should again point you to AUR, and the unofficial user repositores, where many unstable / svn / cvs packages are maintaned. I run Xorg 6.9RC2 myshelf, Xfce from svn, bmpx-svn and a lot of other unstable and alpha/beta software.
Of course, it is *your* system, *your* computer, and you can do whatever you want with it. The distribution and its software managment system does not have to aid you in this; However, arch's system provides some aids anyway.

arch has
(...)
- many packages are incorrect, and refuse to install

May I ask you to provide examples of this?
If you don't , I have to consider this statement as a pure flaimbate. (which is anyway but hey...)

however being with gentoo makes me really annoyed with arch, since there are things i cannot get used to - like having almost no influence on dependencies (i *hate* arts in kde, i want my mplayer with aalib, caca, directfb, i definitely must have sylpheed-claws off cvs, since it's so different from stable), and source builds are not as convenient as i have expected them to be. (i thought i could just, like abs --build e17-cvs and voila . but i have to install every component manually)
well that's my two cents.

-1 flamebait on that part. If you don't like it, stay away. Be happy.

yoshi314 · 2005-11-23 17:15:54

i like pacman for being in C because when you break python in gentoo it's generally goodbye. you're stuck in LFS-like system. i know that python is easier to extend (there are plugins that use mysql or cdb as database backend for portage, speeding it a lot, for instance)

ok, one more question. how can i query the abs for packages?

Just change a line in the kernel PKGBUILD . customize through *config!

that's my point. you have to tinker with PKGBUILD files to alter the way they function that's exactly what i dislike.

i'll search again, then for more repositories. i had no luck so far with aur servers, as 3 or 4 i found did not work at all

May I ask you to provide examples of this?

hmm....
* archck pkgbuild didn't know what to do with uncompressed patchfile. so i had to do it manually from there.
* prozilla does not install. (corrupt download?)
* mc has issues displaying error about liblow.c, and often freezing the entire terminal it is running on,
* same with ekg2
(i had something like that with gentoo, i just had to install libstdc++-v3 ,but it's nowhere to be found in arch).
* nvidia refuses to install with stock kernel from 0.7 cd. after installing archck kernel it started installing (and working too )

it's not that i dislike arch or wanted a flamewar. i just thought it would be nice to present an opinion from somebody who ran gentoo for ~1year. share the experience, you know.

is there a list of unofficial repos that are reliable? (tur aside, i already have them). many of those that i found simply do not work anymore.

stavrosg · 2005-11-23 18:04:42

yoshi314 wrote:

i like pacman for being in C because when you break python in gentoo it's generally goodbye. you're stuck in LFS-like system. i know that python is easier to extend (there are plugins that use mysql or cdb as database backend for portage, speeding it a lot, for instance)
ok, one more question. how can i query the abs for packages?

There are some helper scripts, just check the User Contributons forum
I use aurbuild mostly

Just change a line in the kernel PKGBUILD . customize through *config!
that's my point. you have to tinker with PKGBUILD files to alter the way they function that's exactly what i dislike.
i'll search again, then for more repositories. i had no luck so far with aur servers, as 3 or 4 i found did not work at all

There is a list in the wiki.
On the customisation thing, remember, this is a binary distribution, with an extremely easy package-making proccess.
On a sidenote, there is srcpac package in [extra]
extra/srcpac 0.4.1-1
The pacman from-source wrapper
that may be worth to check out.

May I ask you to provide examples of this?
hmm....
* archck pkgbuild didn't know what to do with uncompressed patchfile. so i had to do it manually from there.

really? works fine here

* prozilla does not install. (corrupt download?)
* mc has issues displaying error about liblow.c, and often freezing the entire terminal it is running on,
* same with ekg2
(i had something like that with gentoo, i just had to install libstdc++-v3 ,but it's nowhere to be found in arch).
* nvidia refuses to install with stock kernel from 0.7 cd. after installing archck kernel it started installing (and working too )
it's not that i dislike arch or wanted a flamewar. i just thought it would be nice to present an opinion from somebody who ran gentoo for ~1year. share the experience, you know.
is there a list of unofficial repos that are reliable? (tur aside, i already have them). many of those that i found simply do not work anymore.

yoshi314 · 2005-11-23 19:53:43

The pacman from-source wrapper
that may be worth to check out.

heh, starting with new linux distro sure is a pain...it does not work for now
i'll try some more ^_^

well thanks for your patience, i surely can tell when i'm pissing people around

you surely are as good as the gentoo community is said to be, that's for sure.

iom · 2005-11-24 09:23:31

just my 2 cents...
i don't like a situation that happened to me on arch.
1) tried to draw a pic in xfig. --> i couldn't export it to eps/pdf/whatever except .fig/.tex. it told me that something is missing. what? i did pacman -Ss xfig, pacman -Ss thatthing... nothing!
2) got a ps. tried to open if using ggv. it didn't work! it had been working for a while and then all of the sudden: it didn't work when i needed it - just because some package maintainer changed a library that ggv uses but didn't repair ggv (ggv is now repaired). so i had to ps2pdf & gpdf/acroread (i can't read anything in gv)
3) installed the wolfram's mathematica. when i run it, my gnome WindowList panel-object consumes 100% CPU. ok. i won't use WindowList although it worked fine not so fine ago.
4) xdvi. something wrong with libXm.so. what the hell. it had always been working fine but when i needed it most it didn't. i couldn't do anything because i was in the middle of nowhere without network connection.

fine. but arch certainly isn't a linux distribution you can rely on. don't tell me to get debian (i am using debian stable at work, anyway) because i want at least i686 optimisation.
still: i want a distribution i can work with. sorry to say that, i liked archlinux very much; but i installed gentoo the other day and it turns to be much much (much) more stable. the whole installation process lasted less than a day so it isn't really such a big deal. i don't need frequent updates because what i installed actually works.

and yes, another thing. i hate gcc-4.0. i use my computer for scientific computation and gcc4 is much slower than any of 3.[34] versions.

still, i will be missing 'makepkg' and 'pacman'. pacman is the best package manager; but the packages are far from that. and another thing: i like /etc/rc.conf, /etc/rc.d philosophy as well.

bye.

p.s. i don't want to argue about xfig/ggv/xfig anymore. i didn't work when it should. that's enough for me. i don't care if it didn't work just for a day or two.

arooaroo · 2005-11-24 09:33:09

iom wrote:

... i installed gentoo the other day and it turns to be much much (much) more stable. the whole installation process lasted less than a day so it isn't really such a big deal. i don't need frequent updates because what i installed actually works.

You could apply that logic to Arch too, right? You say packages were working, but then failed to after an update. So, if an update failed, rollback, and remain static.

Still, at the end of the day, I feel you pain. Not that Arch has been bad for me. But if I had your experience, then I too would be looking elsewhere. There seem to be certain corners within the Arch sphere that aren't always running that smoothly. Forunately, I'm simpleton who doesn't do a great deal with my system, so I rarely wonder outside of the "safe" zone.

cro · 2006-01-02 17:06:00

I like Gentoo and I'm still using it, although I'm very interested in Arch Linux.
The things I like most of Gentoo are the Runlevel Management and, of course, Portage. And the USE flags! I just wanted to install 'samba' on Arch Linux and it peeves me that I have to install dependencies which I would never need, in this case: 'heimdal', 'cups' and 'openldap'. And the compiling of Gentoo is not a big deal on a fast computer, so I'm planning to use ArchLinux for my older and slower computers. My notebook (Pentium M 1,6) is running fine with Gentoo, but on my Athlon XP 1800+ it is more problematic, and my very old P2 Celeron 466@525 is a mess with Gentoo (I will never compile glibc on that box again!).

pacman is nice, but I find it a bit unpractical and confusing (-S for install??). portage / emerge gives a better overview about what is happening or what packages will be updated. pacman lacks some options and functions. It needs colored output and should list the packages vertically like emerge.

tomfitzyuk · 2006-01-05 00:27:04

cro wrote:

I like Gentoo and I'm still using it, although I'm very interested in Arch Linux.
The things I like most of Gentoo are the Runlevel Management and, of course, Portage. And the USE flags! I just wanted to install 'samba' on Arch Linux and it peeves me that I have to install dependencies which I would never need, in this case: 'heimdal', 'cups' and 'openldap'. And the compiling of Gentoo is not a big deal on a fast computer, so I'm planning to use ArchLinux for my older and slower computers. My notebook (Pentium M 1,6) is running fine with Gentoo, but on my Athlon XP 1800+ it is more problematic, and my very old P2 Celeron 466@525 is a mess with Gentoo (I will never compile glibc on that box again!).
pacman is nice, but I find it a bit unpractical and confusing (-S for install??). portage / emerge gives a better overview about what is happening or what packages will be updated. pacman lacks some options and functions. It needs colored output and should list the packages vertically like emerge.

You're right about listing things vertically, it's annoying having them horizontally.

I also don't like how Pacman works sometimes, I installed gAIM but it wanted gnupg too. I know how important crytography is, but I'd rather have the choice as to whether or not to install it (I could choose to IgnorePkg but I'd rather it just install the package gAIM and any dependancies rather than "dependances".

BTW, if gAIM is actually dependant on gnupg then please ignore the previous post.

jakob · 2006-01-05 09:11:26

you can build your own gaim-package with abs where you can remove "gnupg" als dependencie

ixtow · 2006-01-05 23:50:53

incinerator wrote:

my 2 cents,
I switched from Gentoo to Arch about 2 months ago. I am very satisfied with Arch and I currently have no plans to go back to Gentoo. The main reasons for this are:
1.) Maintenance effort: Arch reduces the time I have to spent to keep my system up-to-date by ca. 90%.
2.) Simplicity: According to my experience, more things in Arch work out-of-the-box. Also, the Arch wiki is better explaining how to handle things that don't.
3.) Less breakage: With Gentoo, something borks badly every now and then, that happens way less often with Arch (I only remember a minor udev screw-up).
Things that I miss in Arch are:
- etc-update, that tool rocks
- automatic determination of startup order for /etc/rc.d scripts. The user should not have to worry about what order he has to place the initscripts in rc.conf in.
- kernel-package (Debian, not Gentoo), though ABS works quite well for this.
- a nicer way to install nvidia's geforce-drivers. Having to stop X to update the drivers is inconvenient (not much, though). Debian/kernel-package is a good example on how to handle that, too.
- a small and nice MTA. Fortunately, we now have esmtp in AUR.
Cheers,
Dominik

I just switched to Arch today, and had been using Gentoo for about 2 years. I have yet to plumb the depths of ABS, or even patch myself up to Reiser4, but I love it. Why didn't I do this last year? My system runs so much faster than Gentoo ever did; and i don't have to wait days for things to compile just to find out they're botched.... I'm not rich, most of my hardware is pretty old. I just don't have the time for that headache.

Which leads me to...

I did it for almost all the same reasons as the above quoted person. Add to it, the community. Gentoo has become so 1337, you can't have a problem without being insulted into oblivion. The Nerd Politcs of who-hates-who is also grossly out of hand. I wanted a Distro with a more mature community of Adults that I can relate to, and still avoid the bloat-ware Distros.

Arch is where it's at, and I don't see myself ever using Gentoo again.

trapdoor · 2006-01-16 21:33:23

You are so right about the Gentoo community, i switched 2 months ago for 2 days and i just asked 1 question on IRC and got flamed for 2 hours without getting an answear to my question, this is not what a good community should act like.

postlogic · 2006-01-16 22:25:52

It's sad, but most distro-specific channels are like that from my experience. Personally, Slackware users and Arch users are the best so far o/

kriga · 2006-01-17 21:33:19

Hi all,

I can't say much about the gentoo IRC chats, but the users of the Gentoo forums were very helpful everytime I had a question.

Often it's really the way HOW you ask some question.

One thing that a lot of newbies don't understand when they use the communication channels in some open source projects is that the user and the developer on the forum or IRC needn't to give an answer to you.
Of course it's nice and important to help people who are new to (for example) Arch/Gentoo Linux. But you haven't "paid" this people for something, so their help is voluntarily. So the next time you don't get an reaction on your forum/IRC post, don't try it thousand times again! Either the people don't want to give you an answer (maybe because your question is too imprecise) or they simply don't know the answer. So please don't keep your expectations too high.

Every forum/IRC user should look one time in this HOWTO:
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

Now I'm primary using arch, but still like to read a little bit in the gentoo forums, because they are very informative.
Thanks to all Gentoo/Arch user and developer.

kriga · 2006-01-17 21:33:44

Hi all,

I can't say much about the gentoo IRC chats, but the users of the Gentoo forums were very helpful everytime I had a question.

Often it's really the way HOW you ask some question.

One thing that a lot of newbies don't understand when they use the communication channels in some open source projects is that the user and the developer on the forum or IRC needn't to give an answer to you.
Of course it's nice and important to help people who are new to (for example) Arch/Gentoo Linux. But you haven't "paid" this people for something, so their help is voluntarily. So the next time you don't get an reaction on your forum/IRC post, don't try it thousand times again! Either the people don't want to give you an answer (maybe because your question is too imprecise) or they simply don't know the answer. So please don't keep your expectations too high.

Every forum/IRC user should look one time in this HOWTO:
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

Now I'm primary using arch, but still like to read a little bit in the gentoo forums, because they are very informative.
Thanks to all Gentoo/Arch user and developer.

peterk0 · 2006-07-22 16:22:39

yoshi314 wrote:

i'm an active gentooist myself. i tried arch couple of times but i haven't tried it for real. now i did, mostly because i happened to accidentaly format my entire HD so i decided it's time to check things up.
i've been stuck with gentoo for a year and i miss tons of things in arch that gentoo has. as well as the other way around.
gentoo has
- source installs with dependency management. it's a pain using abs in arch (you don't have this this this this this and this. DIY)
- source install scripts are more flexible. compilation flags can be changed with USE="(...)" variable. you don't want svg in firefox? fine USE="-svg" emerge mozilla-firefox . in arch you have to dig through those pkgbuild files and edit them by hand.
- kernel installation is better. there is genkernel which builds typical kernel, like in arch. and there is a normal kernel install which simply throws kernel sources to /usr/src, and optionally makes a /usr/src/linux symlink. and you can tinker with it to your heart content. and there are many patchsets for kernels, available in the same manner.
- additional kernel modules are way easier to install. and there are tons of them, right in portage.
- portage has tons of software. and even more tons of software packages that install themselves off cvs/svn. i have trouble finding my favorite apps in archlinux (bmpx, xmms2)
- when a system gets borked due to the incompatibility of a new version of library (DirectFB especially, change to 0.9.24 causes a lot of mess), it's a matter of one script to rebuild everything that depends on it.
- neat initscript system, with convenient rc-update tool
- you can have multiple gcc/binutils/java versions in your system and easily switch between them
- more unstable software (deer park, e17 off cvs at any time, modular x.org etc etc)
- modular kde is way easy to install (split packages)
- 99.9% ebuilds (package install scripts) work
arch has
- package manager written in C with minimal dependencies
- simple source build system abs
- simplicity
- finding orphaned packages (that's what i really like in pacman, portage doesn't have that yet)
- better uninstalling of packages (pacman -R kde removes whole kde, which is exactly what i would expect from such command)
- low overhead when installing package (it takes some time to calculate deps with portage, and to finish. it's kinda sluggish)
- obviously packages take less time to install
- many packages are incorrect, and refuse to install
however being with gentoo makes me really annoyed with arch, since there are things i cannot get used to - like having almost no influence on dependencies (i *hate* arts in kde, i want my mplayer with aalib, caca, directfb, i definitely must have sylpheed-claws off cvs, since it's so different from stable), and source builds are not as convenient as i have expected them to be. (i thought i could just, like abs --build e17-cvs and voila . but i have to install every component manually)
well that's my two cents.

very well written, almost exactly what i see as the main pros/cons. i'm with gentoo for more than 3 years now and i'm soo used to it. the real problem with compiling comes only with big packages like firefox, and for them it's almost always a bin.
i installed arch just for fun, configured and everything and i see what so many ppl like about it.
i'm using it like my test linux, if i want to test a new software -> reboot arch (exactly the same setup as gentoo) install via pacman, try this, try that and if it works, let's reboot gentoo and compile it with my own flags
also there is a really nice community around arch

brazzmonkey · 2006-07-24 13:29:41

i agree with the above. compiling things is not very convenient in arch, although it is of common use because many packages are not in the official repos. i expected abs to be more practical...

some very handy gentoo tools do not have equivalence in arch, such as modules-rebuild (very handy if you have sevral kernels installed). also i like the way you can manage your kernel stuff, only by using a handy symlink. the same applies to gentoo's slots, which allow having different version of the same software. it may come in handy for some people (but personnally i don't care).

i like gentoo's kde split ebuilds, but i know it requires more work for developpers. there are a few apps i really use in kde and that'd be great not to be forced to install other useless ones. no big deal, though.

may i point that gentoo is not a distro by itself, only a set of tools to build your own distro. some stuff is really cool and it'd be great if similar things could be implemented in arch.

i know for sure that some of them (like the modules-rebuild script) are KISS compliant.

Arch Linux

#76 2005-09-26 08:41:27

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#77 2005-09-26 15:27:25

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#78 2005-10-09 19:22:51

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#79 2005-11-16 00:27:53

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#80 2005-11-21 21:32:08

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#81 2005-11-21 22:24:35

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#82 2005-11-23 10:03:04

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#83 2005-11-23 10:03:35

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#84 2005-11-23 14:30:45

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#85 2005-11-23 14:43:00

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#86 2005-11-23 17:15:54

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#87 2005-11-23 18:04:42

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#88 2005-11-23 19:53:43

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#89 2005-11-24 09:23:31

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#90 2005-11-24 09:33:09

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#91 2006-01-02 17:06:00

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#92 2006-01-05 00:27:04

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#93 2006-01-05 09:11:26

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#94 2006-01-05 23:50:53

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#95 2006-01-16 21:33:23

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#96 2006-01-16 22:25:52

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#97 2006-01-17 21:33:19

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#98 2006-01-17 21:33:44

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#99 2006-07-22 16:22:39

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

#100 2006-07-24 13:29:41

Re: gentoo to arch - good to see

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