Re: [gentoo-embedded] Some good words for Gentoo embedded?

[Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se>]

Kfir Lavi wrote:
> What will be the major points I need to make in order to convert
> their minds from Ubuntu to Gentoo embedded?

It depends. Maybe Ubuntu would actually be a fine choice for the
customer.


> "Why Gentoo?" for people that don't understand Linux, but are
> educated and very experienced in software.

Key words are configurability (security, size, speed benefits),
repeatability (archive all sources and the build tools to recreate
from scratch forever), being source based (easy to stay close to
upstream, noone else makes arbitrary decisions on versions, easy to
also collect all licensing information), unparalleled simplicity and
power in the packaging system (ebuilds are vamped up sh scripts) and
excellent documentation of the same (pms-3.pdf).

Some of the above are significant advantages for some customers, and
major headaches for others. I would suggest that Gentoo will require
more "positive QA" to determine that the finished system behaves as
desired, while something based on Ubuntu requires more "negative QA"
to check if the Ubuntu system still works even if stripped down.

Gentoo also requires being able to make decisions. This means having
an ear to the upstream tracks. For someone who is not interested in
this it is much more comfortable to rely on Canonical's ears to the
tracks, albeit that means giving up much choice.

This is the selling point as a consultant - if you are skilled and
experienced with the open source community, perhaps even a
contributor in one or more projects, then you have a strong case as
being an open source expert.

If that also means that you are experienced enough to appreciate the
versatility of Gentoo, and able to compare it with the Ubuntu way,
then it should be easy to motivate your preference of Gentoo.

Of course, maybe your customer does not want to become, or depend on,
an open source expert - which may still be valid - in which case I
would advise against Gentoo, but in fact also Linux at all.

If they are business people rather than software people then you
could motivate Gentoo with the fact that it allows you to accomplish
virtually any configuration and extension they would like to have in
the future very efficiently, while Ubuntu is generally restricted to
one particular way of doing things.

(And of course Ubuntu above can be replaced with any other binary
distribution.)


//Peter