From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LUUCO-0001P1-So for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:56:57 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6C43AE05AC; Tue, 3 Feb 2009 22:56:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-fx0-f20.google.com (mail-fx0-f20.google.com [209.85.220.20]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B0E7E05AC for ; Tue, 3 Feb 2009 22:56:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm13 with SMTP id 13so2753292fxm.10 for ; Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:56:53 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=lcaEFbYV2j846Rr78yW/3idSdYNUna+yBWgf1Z9VSRA=; b=m/TyN3MXppBpONPJ882qTBttPP/VURSHbQvh/8NwqiRypbGOXyqbiW8IaDg2Oiq6Gy scUW1PXp0g2SwEdaTaudfrw3OeeW/ZHq6z2mryTSGV2SwyxtUp1HfjOER8y0JswRrP2d bv+EJoclCKctQp30KXKGUN9VepjkQpksHkUhw= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=dizTqE9FzFyWTC93TEg+N3ru0BfHFrgZv4hVxKWMJUEsMlnxbtAlLi3HqgWr2NdyhF JN+HMwdnO3+ZBlaT0xO3zADSlrk9MHmBsTqfC++z1qfWz+GFDcQer+hbLYuyU7U0kRLy OTNpqeeTDiXM6N0dATTbfEmiAlARw6m+bUXng= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.181.216.12 with SMTP id t12mr853196bkq.122.1233701813161; Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:56:53 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:56:53 -0800 Message-ID: <49bf44f10902031456h384f285md97bb36b332ae939@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh? From: Grant To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 7c184c30-b10c-4262-8f12-17da9e339ba6 X-Archives-Hash: 721c046431d89c0eb136e82426753a83 > Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's describe as a system > similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source. > The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get > better performance because all executables are optimized for > exactly the right instruction set. More often than not, when I read that description of "Gentoo's advantage" it is meant to turn people off. Ricer, etc. - Grant > Where did that bit of apocrypha come from, and why is it > parroted by so many people? > > AFAICT, the "performance" benefit due to compiler optimization > is practically nil in real-world usage. > > In my experience the huge benefit of source-based distros such > as Gentoo is elimination of the library dependency-hell that > mires other binary-based distros. > > For many years I ran RedHat and then Mandrake. After a year or > so, they became impossible to maintain because of library > version conflicts. Every time I tried up upgrade an RPM package > to fix a bug or security hole, it required a handful of > libraries to be upgraded, but doing that would break a bunch of > other RPMs for which upgrades weren't available. The solution > was always to start building stuff from sources. Once you > started doing that, the package manager would get upset because > it doesn't know about some stuff that's installed (unless you > built from source RPMs, which had another set of problems). > > The second benefit is that with Gentoo, upgrading a system > actually works over the long-run. With RedHat/Mandrake, things > would gradually deteriorate to the point where the system was > unmaintainable, but attempting to upgrade between major > releases was always futile. I've had Gentoo machines that have > been upgraded for 4-5 years without any significant problems > (failed hard-drives don't count). > > The third main benefit I've seen is that there are vastly more > packages available for Gentoo. Putting together and > maintaining an ebuild appears to take a lot less work than > putting together and maintaining a binary RPM package. I've > had far fewer problems with third party ebuilds than I did with > third-party RPMs (on the rare occasions when I found one for > some obscure application I wanted to run). Again, the solution > was always "build from sources". > > Are the real benefits of Gentoo too hard to explain to the > unwashed masses, so instead they're told the fairy tale about > imporoved performance? > > -- > Grant Edwards grante Yow! ! Up ahead! It's a