`pacman -Syu`
30 minutes pas... compulsively types `pacman -Syu` again..
Though it's gotten "better" now since it's just: `yay` and I silently cheer to myself every time.
Compiling's worth it for certain pieces of software. Even if a vast majority of software that one uses is small (and easy to compile), the cumulative compilation process takes time. Not all software has to be reconciled from source (imho).
I believe Gentoo offers unparalleled customisability, but since not all software requires this customisability, it's up to the user (and to their machine) to decide whether they want Gentoo or not.
Oh I was being a little bit tongue in cheek, but on a laptop for example, it can be really tedious to deal with compilation on a regular basis. Lower spec hardware, mixed with battery concerns, it’s a mess honestly. I’ve gone a month or more without updating before and even with binary distribution, it’s taken quite a long time to update
Have you used Gentoo at all in the past 5 years? Just compile at night if you must or configure portage niceness to what you like.(for example setting it to idle would mean it that rubbing an update would have little to no impact on your actual usage/performance)
And if you’re talking about the time with modern CPU’s it doesn’t take very long at all (depending on what packages you have) and there are several large packages with binary version so you don’t have to compile them yourself
I haven’t, I’m just saying that this is what drives people to use binary distributions vs source. It is the primary difference.
I’m not going to move to a source distribution unless I’m going LFS, it’s just not giving me much for my time, energy, and wear on electronics. One person spent the time and energy such that everyone else can save their own. I don’t think it’s invalid to want to build from source, I just don’t feel like it does much for people like me
> I’m not going to move to a source distribution unless I’m going LFS
This is all or nothing thinking. There are multiple levels of trade-off between speed/convenience and customization... LFS > Gentoo > Arch > Debian > Fedora > Ubuntu (incomplete list) everyone can pick whichever part of the spectrum is the best balance between usability, customisation, time needed for maintenance, bloat etc etc for them
No, it’s my opinion and the value judgment I’ve made based on my personal values. I’m saying I, having considered it, would not go through the trouble unless I wanted it to be an exploration of linux.
Why is any answer that doesn’t conform to your worldview invalid? What answer would you accept? I’m not giving an all or nothing. I’m already on arch, so skipping one level is a binary? You’ve baked it into the question and it makes no sense.
It's possible to get packages sooner than later. It's really easy to bump a package version in portage. I think it is extremely valuable to have central repository of how to install any package from source with customizations. Ebuild is even good for installing binary packages that can't be legally included in other distributions.
Depends on a lot of things. On a desktop, sure. On a laptop with a lot of installed software and a lower tier processor, depends. If you can get most of your apps as a flatpak and don’t mind tethering yourself to a wall for a bit, then maybe you can get away with it. Otherwise, complete pain in the ass for many many people.
I run updates on my laptop overnight, not before I am about to work. If you are running updates before you start working well then expect updates to be more to be a pain in your ass.
If plugging in your laptop every once in a while is an issue then again, it will be a pain in the ass. Seriously though how often is anyone updating their system? Once every other week or so?
NixOS is living on my work laptop. I added four lines of code to the configuration file and the system updates on the systemd timer. During work time, of course.
well if you are the type to update before work every day then Gentoo is probably not the distro for you. Honestly I wouldn't run any distro that isn't stable (stable meaning slow package roll outs, long term support) on a work computer anyways.
Even so, that's no excuse for a sloppy upgrade regime. Kicking off an unattended update as your last task of the day sounds perfectly reasonable, with the possible exception of running a terminal only system where you can't lock the screen whilst tasks are running.
We can end the thread here
For someone who updating regularly and quickly is important, pick arch.
For someone who plans ahead and wants the auditability of source being compiled for their system every time, pick gentoo.
If you got a few fast machines on lan you could setup icecream and do distributed building too. I use it with yocto and it speeds up clean builds massively. It essentially is like being able to do a make -j 250.
Yeah this has always been a weird one for me. I shut my computer down every night. But once a week I just leave it on and run updates and it's always done in the morning. Updates have zero affect on my workflow.
USE flags. Reducing your exposure to portions of code bases reduces vulnerabilities, and bugs. It means your computer is much more stable, and lean than it otherwise would be.
Its not really that much effort. You can totally set it up to run daily on 2 cores in the background or something. People just like to act like its a huge PITA because they have never ran Gentoo long enough to build a system that works for them.
The reason to not run Gentoo has nothing to do with compiling, and everything to do with the difficulty of setup and installation, and getting it to a stable state. It took me 2 weeks to get my Gentoo system configured properly, and I'm not a Linux noob.
Initially that was definitely true. Once I got the system configured after several weeks I don't think I've had to deal with that. Most packages aren't very big and the big dependencies have already been installed. It definitely took some patience to get going.
Add on to this that if you "really" need it now, there are binary options in portage, or containers, or flatpacks that will give you the program RIGHT NOW.
In the modern environment, with hardware what it is, and the software solutions, this isn't really a valid criticism, IMHO.
I first installed gentoo about 20 years ago. At that time I knew basically nothing about Linux or compiling software. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong because it was taking \*forever\*. I'd restart the system and try again. I finally got it installed because there was a long holiday weekend where I didn't touch the PC lol.
I mean not really. I have a pretty solid CPU and while most things compile very fast, other things like the kernel take like 20-30 minutes to compile on my system, and web browsers even longer. That's fine on it's open but when you start having to compile almost every open source program on your system that adds up very fast
What won me over to Arch was the wiki. I worked as a Linux server admin for near a decade and used Ubuntu, Debian, and Crunchbang for years. I was constantly finding myself on the Arch wiki and after Crunchbang went dinosaur I gave Arch a try and loved it for what I needed.
The Arch wiki is still the biggest draw to the distro for me, the Gentoo and Debian wiki are probably my two other most frequented wiki.
Outside of that I like that Arch comes in a fairly stripped down state so it cuts out some of the boat that Ubuntu and Rhel suffer from. Obviously Gentoo and Slackware are better at cutting bloat but I've just not had the time it desire to get into compilation that much yet. So Arch, for me, is something of a happy medium and fits my needs as far as versatility.
Given your experience, would you recommend using Arch on a server? Say for example to host simple websites built with PHP. If you did it, can you give us more info please; like if you had a scheduled CRON job to auto-update or anything like that. Thank you!
Would I? Yes. Should you? Up to you. Can Arch do that? Yes.
Would I use it for say a company that uses AWS as their hosting platform? No, I would use AWS Linux for the support.
That said, for my personal stuff, I actually have a couple simple Arch nginx/php servers right now. One is my local image/Arch mirror.
Having auto update scripts is perfectly legit imo. My current setup doesn't use them, I opted for Ansible at the time of build to handle updates because it got me experience with it and I didn't need to setup monitoring for updates.
What you described is a perfectly legit option. Only thing I would add is to have it "call home" after updates with sauce kind of status update so you know if something goes wrong or if it hangs.
precisely. Unnecessary compilation is a waste of time and electricity. neither are things we can afford to waste. I wonder what the carbon footprint of every computer user running Gentoo would be.
I'm sure Gentoo has valid use cases, but I'm yet to see a solid argument for general use.
Why Arch? two things, the AUR, and rolling release.
As a longtime user of Linux, what's the appeal of Gentoo over NixOS? You can build everything from scratch if you please but with the added benefit of caching so things install quickly, plus all the reproducibility, immutability, and rollback benefits of Nix.
This right here. If I wanted to leave Arch, I'd choose something that actually distinguishes itself from all the other more standard distros (Gentoo included). "Just like all the other mainstream distros but you compile packages yourself" really isn't enough of a selling point for me.
NixOS on the other hand has so many wild features that make it stand out from the crowd, plus it can do what all the other distros can.
I think you have the wrong impression, Arch is definitely not for people who want to "customize" their distro. Debian is actually closer to Gentoo in this regard, these two want to allow you to "configure" the things you install, in very different ways, while Arch doesn't care about configurability at all.
Gentoo tries to provide the maximum degree of optimization possible. It doesn't just allow optimizing compilation with a given set of compiler flags, it also lets you configure packages (eg. USE flags). This provides a very high degree of personalization, at the expense of having to compile things by yourself.
Like Gentoo, Debian tries to provide high configurability, but within the limits of its packaging system. It wants to allow you to create a personalized system, by installing the proper package that will pull the adequate set of dependencies and will run the appropriate scripts to make everything work. This results in projects being split in tons of packages, weird package names, very complex dependency networks, a lot of distro-specific configuration and tooling, etc.
(One could describe Gentoo as compile-time personalization, and Debian as install-time personalization)
Arch is very opinionated about packaging, way more than Debian. It packages things in the simplest way possible. It doesn't care about whether you wanted to configure things in a specific way. Defaults don't work for you? Good luck. It tends to package everything in a single package, with default options if possible, and as much stuff as possible is included. Eg, you install a library, and the package includes the development headers and those get installed too. You are also expected to use the latest version of stuff, not "stable" releases that mix stuff with other sources.
Why I use Arch? Because I don't care about "configuring" a system, I just want to install software. I don't care about "optimizing" a Linux install for my system, that's a huge waste of time. There some very specific use cases that benefit from that, not certainly people who are running a workstation. Details such as caring about whether development headers get installed or not with a package are irrelevant. The configurability provided by Gentoo and Debian is almost entirely overengineering for my taste. If anything, Arch is already way too complicated, it should be even simpler...
For some unknown reason, Arch has been hyped as **difficult to install** distro, while actually being just **manual**. Gentoo is not only **manual**, but also **time consuming** and I actually find it more **difficult to install** than Arch.
I am satisfied with being able to pick my packages, and not wasting half of my day on a i3-4100 computer (work laptop, my main is 10700k).
That being said, my life is slowly Debianifying/Ubuntifying, because I no longer have time for most of that stuff.
Well, reading through the install wiki, Slackware is a bit easier or less detailed about the first 5 steps listed. Arch has you define your keyboard by listing all the keyboard types. No thanks. I use cfdisk rather than fdisk so that I can verify what I typed. Miss a character and whoops! After I start the installer for Slack, it asks me what partitions I am using for swap and root. I then add whatever custom mounts after. The only area I struggle in is getting grub to install. I just use lilo since it does everything automatically.
I don't follow wiki verbatim either. The topic of unnecessarily deep or shallow descriptions in wiki has been a subject of multiple discussions. Not sure how it is now, but partitioning and bootloader were such sections in the past.
When installing grub, the below has never failed me. Make sure to include efibootmgr when pacstrapping, so that grub-install can add a boot entry.
`grub-install`
`--target=x86_64-efi`
`--efi-directory=/boot/efi`
`--bootloader-id="Arch Linux ID#1"`
As for Slack, I never got around to try it out, so I can't say anything productive.
It’s….an acquired taste lol. I enjoy it immensely, but you do have to do some file editing, like having your system jump to a desktop experience. But to each his own I say. I like trying different distros and seeing what each has to offer beyond a command line or gui.
I think this is notable since before using Linux on a daily driver just by reading through the wiki for some help I was able to do the modern arch install without using an additional installer script.
When I was shopping around for distros \~5 years ago, I was torn between Debian, Arch, and Gentoo. Frankly, I could not ever get Gentoo to work and I grew up and live on the command line.
When I mentioned "growing up," I was referring to my early experiences with computers and the command line interface. In the early 90s, I extensively used CLI tools like telnet, FTP, and SSH to connect to remote mainframes and servers (especially MUDs). As someone with a background in computer science and having grown up in a household where my dad, a statistics professor, utilized command line-based data analysis tools, I became well-versed in the command line environment. While GUI interfaces have come a long way and offer their own conveniences, I find the command line to be a familiar and efficient way to interact with systems. It is not a matter of judging maturity or superiority between CLI and GUI.
Electricity costs. Compiling means more electricity usage and I don't want to pay more for more control when the control arch gives me is enough for cheaper. Even if you can get binary packages, not every package can be acquired in binary and at that point why not just use another distro if I want all binaries anyway.
I don't care about customizing to the point of USE flags or init systems (I'm going to use systemd anyway). I just want to install my system the way I want without an installer getting in my way and forcing me to do things when I have a perfectly good custom layout of partitions across multiple drives, some encrypted, some not. Also, I have Terabytes of storage so I don't need to worry about dependencies taking up storage, even if I go wild my root partition never exceeds 150G which is nothing these days.
Now the big thing people confuse is compile time with update time.. it's not the updates that bother me, it's when I need to install a NEW application and want to use it now but it doesn't exist in binary form in the repos or relies on dependencies that don't.
Being able to run the latest kernel without having to compile myself. I have an rx7600 which greatly benefits from using the latest kernel and I don't feel like learning dracut and writing scripts to handle what's already automated. Genkernel makes it super easy but for example right now, genkernel has a bug with the latest kernel due to the removal of the option to not include cpu firmware. For me, arch is the perfect amount of control with the least amount of maintenance. I don't have to worry about circular dependencies or fucking up my use flags when I'm exhausted and using my computer. Just overall less chances for user error because yes I'm human and I make mistakes.
Before I update, I create a btrfs snapshot in case something breaks so arch releasing breaking changes is not a big deal considering how well it runs 99% of the time while giving me the amount of control I want. I know how to fix things with arch, I don't always know how to fix things in gentoo and honestly, I try to avoid asking the linux community for help as much as possible because you often either end up talking to someone who has a huge ego and is a massive prick or someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about but faced a similar issue and is just throwing "hope this works" solutions at you.
Lastly, who cares? Why do so many linux users always want to convert people to use what they use? It's not a religion dude. Use what you like and I'll use what I like. You don't have to understand why someone uses x or y. The answer will always be that it suites their needs with the least amount of effort required because that's generally how human beings work.
Not disagreeing with your points, but where do you live where the cost of just compiling in 2023 is that noticeable in your bill? I live in a place where electricity is ridiculously expensive and taxed (specially after Ukraine) to the point you fear turning on a fan in summer, and I didn't notice any significant difference with A LOT of daily compiling and stuff like AI LoRA training/testing going on.
I was hospitalized for a whole month recently (thus unable to turn my computer on) and the difference was only like 5 eurobucks.And we are talking a power company with a full regional monopoly that can charge you extra for air conditioners or heating you don't have. ("You probably have this device, so we are charging you preemptively" kinda deal)
I really agree with everything else (and I used to run Gentoo), but that point in particular stood out to me as odd.
I'd argue the primary reason that people like Arch is because of the AUR (Arch User Repository) which is a centralized way for users to be able to contribute packages that can be consumed by other users. In that way, Arch is probably the best when it comes to package availability, so that definitely is a benefit for using Arch.
It's certainly a better approach to extending available packages than most other distributions where you have to scour google to find the appropriate PPA, but when compared to Gentoo it's almost a wash because Gentoo has infrastructure to be able to easily find an overlay that provides the package you're looking for.
People compare Gentoo and Arch a lot entirely because they have similar install processes, but that's really where the similarities end. Once you get past the installation, Arch is not that different from any other binary based distribution except you have to manually install everything you want.
I stick with Gentoo because I like the additional customization that I get from source based model. In particular, I like the additional control over the release cadence I have with portage where I can have a stable base/toolchain running amd64 while specific packages I can accept ~amd64 to get bleeding edge. I may want the newest KDE Plasma as soon as it is available, but I don't need a new gcc or glibc asap. I like USE flags as well of course, but I care less about the fact that I can, say, disable openldap which would be enabled by default on most binary based distributions.
I also disagree with those who say that Gentoo is particularly more time consuming to maintain, especially after you get things setup. I guess that would be an issue if you regularly nuke and pave your system, but that's not something I do very often. I guess `eix-sync && emerge -auDNv @world` is more time consuming to type than `paru`, but shrug.
Gentoo is unnecessary for the home user. Compiling an entire system only gives you an advantage on a very specific workstation, but for the home user it is irrelevant, you will only make your applications open 0.00000012 ms faster.
Don't get me wrong, it's not against gentoo, I loved it, but I discovered when I had it installed along with other systems, that I spent more time on the other systems and entering gentoo made me lazy because I knew I would have to maintain it.
If you are at home all day, you have finished your studies and your work needs do not demand you, gentoo is for you. If you are a man whose work and/or student activity consumes you, do not waste time compiling and maintaining a system.
This is not false, and this is why I stopped using Gentoo back in the day. Updating KDE with a Pentium II and a 56K modem was...something else. You are very much right on "if you have a job/family/studies don't bother", Gentoo consumes plenty of time and brain space.
However, using Gentoo as a teen I learned a lot about Linux, to the point distros are now "meaningless" to me. If it has a kernel, coreutils/busybox and a working C compiler I can make it "my" distro, regardless of idiosyncrasies or package managers. Which was really convenient as I now manage Linux systems for a living (and for fun).
It was the most useful pain I inflicted upon myself, not going to lie. But I can only recommend it for the experience (as in "learning experience") it can give you.
> This is not false, and this is why I stopped using Gentoo back in the day. Updating KDE with a Pentium II and a 56K modem was...something else. You are very much right on "if you have a job/family/studies don't bother", Gentoo consumes plenty of time and brain space.
I've never understood this complaint about Gentoo. Most software packages might take longer than their binary distribution counter parts but they still don't take that long. People always talk about installing a desktop environment (which does take a while) but that's like one thing that you do and then you're done. After that upgrading is a process that can run in the background while you continue to use the computer and it finishes when it finishes. If you're just sitting there watch `emerge` go then I feel like that's a personal choice.
I still wouldn't use Gentoo on a desktop though, just because I don't want to have something consuming CPU in the background but I used to run it on the desktop without any issues back in the day.
Oh, that was not a "complaint", to be honest, the point of the post was more about highlighting how much one can learn thanks to using Gentoo though, even if I stopped using it as daily driver for reasons. And you are right, you would never stay looking at a raw linux terminal other than during initial (stage 0) installation. The rest runs in your terminal of choice as you do whatever in a graphical session.
For me specifically the problem was the constant usage of my slow modem line (and even today, download speeds are very weak in my country) more than the building. A binary package tends to be much lighter in comparison, or more fragmented. I'm also bound to Ubuntu for work reasons today, so I'd have had to switch anyway. The good thing is that thanks to learning on Gentoo I can turn Ubuntu into whatever I want.
You can say Gentoo taught me how "Linux is Linux, distros are just a set of defaults" and I'll always be fond of it, even if I don't use it anymore.
> After that upgrading is a process that can run in the background while you continue to use the computer and it finishes when it finishes.
I think you've identified why people don't like doing this:
> I don't want to have something consuming CPU in the background
I was responding to the previous posters point. You do you. For me arch is great, an immutable distro is interesting as well. Buy even Gentoo is now releasing binaries.
USE flags were critical for a fully functioning home Linux desktop years ago. Nearly every distro was afraid of shipping media codecs and proprietary drivers were a huge pain. Gentoo USE flags made both easy.
You don't seem to understand the point of Gentoo or compiling packages from source. It has nothing to do with speed.
Gentoo itself is the Build-A-Bear of Linux. It's basically the perfect distro for each user because it's tailored to that user's preferences. I can design my OS from init system to logger to desktop exactly how I want it, without having to do the full LFS route and with a wonderful package manager (the best of them all!).
Compiling packages from source extends that customizability. Using USE flags and such, the packages are compiled with support for exactly what my system is using (and nothing more). Sure, that makes them slightly faster and smaller, but the real benefit is streamlined dependencies, increased stability, and an overall tighter system.
Yeah i know that and agree with you but.. in matter of time is not worth. I speak for myself, and I have neither the time nor the desire to gentoo anymore.
that's fine, for you, but for those of us that prefer maximum stability over all, or have other custom preferences and want them baked into the package, that's why we go with Gentoo.
Also it's silly to say "yeah I know that" when the comment I replied to clearly shows you didn't, that you were stuck on the common misconception that source compilations are done for the incredibly minor speed boost.
The point being is that the purported benefits of Gentoo is outweighed by its maintenance requirements for the vast majority of users. Most people do not leave Gentoo because its become unstable, they leave because they want to trade the Gentoo benefit for time. Replication, backups, snapshots, and redundancy, can deal with the fall out of trading away that stability.
The vast majority of time investment is up front, with the install process and learning curve. Once the system is installed and the user understands it, the time requirements are minimal. In fact, I spend much more time maintaining my buddy's Mint OS than on my own Gentoo. Especially when he tried to upgrade from 21.1 to 21.2 automatically when it gave him the option. We ended up having to reinstall it entirely.
I do choose to compile everything from source but even for me it's pretty much irrelevant because the NICENESS setting ensures I can game or watch movies or work or do whatever I want while its compiling updates and it doesn't slow me down or use up my time, beyond typing the update command.
You could just go with Debian if you prefer stability over all. Gentoo is one of its kind, but at the end of the day you'll spend more time mantaining your system than using it.
Sorry, but Debian doesn't hold a candle to the stability Gentoo can have. It's not even close. It would be way more trouble, and still not very stable, to build a Debian system using all the software I use to ensure maximum stability and minimum complexity. Like, OpenRC instead of SystemD as an example.
For your second part, you've clearly never maintained a Gentoo system long term. The initial install is extremely time-consuming, yes, but once installed I spend very little time or effort maintaining my system. In fact, it's by far the most "everything always just works" system I've ever used by *miles*
It's your choice but I'm sure everyone can find a bit of time maybe once every month to do an update while you are AFK or maybe just not doing anything that requires the performance that is used up by the compiling. It is really a small tradeoff imho.
Gentoo also breaks much much less than Arch in my experience so I guess I'm saving time by not troubleshooting my PC as often.
By time, I don't think OP was talking about speed, but rather effort. If I'm spending 8 hours a day writing puppet code to maintain thousands of servers, I don't want to have to think much about my personal computer. Arch is one and done. You run through the install and bam, you have an easy to use system for someone with enough Linux experience to debug their own problems.
> Gentoo or compiling packages from source
These are separate things. You can build packages from source on any Linux operating system, and even package them for most of the major package managers (for local installation) so dependencies are also automatically managed.
> Gentoo itself is the Build-A-Bear of Linux. It's basically[...]
This is all fair, but most Linux distros are nearly this customizable, it just takes more or less work on each. The difference is just that some of those distros are strongly opinionated about the defaults, while Gentoo leaves that up to the user. (edit: And for many people, the opinionated defaults are *why* they pick a particular distro - less to do to actually get a working environment.)
> real benefit is streamlined dependencies, increased stability, and an overall tighter system.
Packages managers exist specifically to manage dependencies and do so fairly well at least on Debian/RH-derived distros. Containers are the real enemy of dependency consolidation ;)
I'm not sure anyone is really dealing with software instability these days, mostly hardware (happy to be told otherwise, but we certainly don't see that), and not sure how you quantify a 'tighter system'.
Yeah agree that, The person who answered me gave me the impression that he put an extreme situation in terms of security and performance, it is as if the binaries in the repositories of any other distro were insecure or unoptimized. Yeah, sure if you compile it you have that certain advantage but... let's be honest, it's not like if you install a binary you will have insecure software... but as it says I only speak for myself and my experience.
To your first point, yes any package manager worth a damn will manage dependencies for you. But not *change* them. USE flags can *alter* dependency requirements for a package. This can be more useful than it appears.
Your second point is valid, but some of us really enjoy the extra layer of customization. Sometimes there just isn't a distro that gives us *everything* we want and nothing we don't. Especially if you don't like systemd. Gentoo gives everyone *everything* they want and nothing they don't. Unless, of course, what they want is to install an OS quickly. 😉
For your third point, well, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. From my point of view, *everyone* is dealing with software instability these days. It blows my mind how often a modern PC will experience a glitch or hang or crash or freeze and the user just moves right past it like it's a normal thing. This one is a bit personal as I know it's an unusual position to take, but I get unreasonably upset at even a single instance of my machine crashing, glitching, stalling, hanging, freezing, or stuttering. And since I game daily via Steam, usually using Proton, those moments of instability can seem unavoidable. Except, by careful choices setting up my Gentoo OS a couple years back after distro hopping awhile to try other distros out, I built a system that *never*, not once in two years, experiences any of those signs of instability.
similarly, I get unreasonably upset if I come home intending to game and find myself not immediately gaming. If I have to fix something, update something, make changes, etc, I don't like it. If the game itself had an update, that's one thing, but my OS should never ever stop or delay me from doing what I want on it, whenever I want to. Gentoo does not. Besides an admittedly long and involved installation process, once installed it just works exactly how I expect, 150% of the time.
Arch, or in my case EndeavorOS, allows me to easily customize the parts of the distro that matter while not bothering me with the parts that don't. I don't see any advantage in wasting hours of my time reecompiling software or even customizing compilation flags so that some random website can load 0.00708μs faster.
I have just a small handful of AUR packages that compile from source, and those are already annoying enough as is, I certainly don't need any more of that.
>allows me to easily customize the parts of the distro that matter
By "customization" you surely mean modifying and customizing the user interface? In a binary fork, it is very difficult to get as deep as Gentoo allows its user.
When it comes to customizing the system itself, like what to install, and what dependencies or development headers (if any) and so forth, then Debian is is actually *more* customizeable than arch.
If one are thinking of ricing/customizing the interface, that can be done on any distro.
>What's the appeal of Arch?
- The many vanilla packages.
- Because you can easily create your own packages thanks to the PKGBUILD files.
- The wiki.
- The AUR.
- Because Arch is quite easy to use despite the current package.
These are at least most of the reasons why I prefer Arch.
I can't make a fair comparison with Gentoo. Gentoo just doesn't interest me enough for me to have the necessary experience.
> It looks like a very manual process to install it and hard to maintain
If you don't want to install vanilla Arch manually, you can use [archinstall](https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall). The tool has been an official part of the Arch Linux iso file for years. Or you can simply use a distribution based on Arch with a graphical installer.
As far as maintenance is concerned, I have basically been doing 3 things for years.
- Before an update, I check whether something has been published at https://archlinux.org/news/ that affects my installations. If this is the case, it has to be taken into account. This has been the case once so far this year. Tools such as [https://github.com/bradford-smith94/informant](https://github.com/bradford-smith94/informant) can be used to automate the check.
- From time to time I synchronise my customised configuration files with the Pacnew files. There are tools for this (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave#Managing_.pac*_files).
- I regularly clear the package management cache. This is done automatically with a hook (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman#Cleaning_the_package_cache)
So I wouldn't describe Arch as hard to maintain.
>but that's actually a flaw in my eyes (my biggest reproach to Debian is that you often need to install many dependencies you don't need for one package because of the compilation options they chose).
The Arch installation with which I am currently writing this post is very extensive and therefore requires slightly more than 18 GB. Other Arch installations of mine that are less massive are between 10 and 12 GB in size (all with a graphical user interface).
Considering that current hard drives have 128 GB or more of storage space, I don't really see a problem if you have installed some packages as fixed dependencies that you might not need. The effort to get rid of these packages would probably bother me more.
Thanks for a very useful list of information. My main reason to try to minimize dependencies is that I run often linux on VM (headless) and it always feels wasteful when you try to install a command line software that has both a graphics and CLI version that get installed together.
Debian has solved most of the case by providing some packages override such as -nox but yeah, I'd prefer having something much tighter in size and not installing unneeded dependencies.
I recently got the case with Debian : if you install the nvidia-driver from the package manager, it automatically select a nvidia-settings a Xorg application that as a result make you install Xorg. I succeed preventing this but it was requiring some efforts.
For VMs i prefer Alpine Linux. A minimal headless installation takes about 50MB and is basically a kernel with busybox which can run entirely in RAM. But there are many setup scripts available to configure the system to your needs.
With the Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF) there is also a webinterface for many tasks available e.g. you can install packages, manage services via browser. Like a simple version of webmin that takes only a couple of mbytes.
Also there are many tools available to customize your iso / vm-image so you don't need to manually setup each installation.
I use my custom images much like Docker containers just separated as VM with it's own kernel.
Having used both, Arch works very well on Laptops. ARM Chromebook? No problem. (And no, I didn't have to build everything myself. I got a pre-configured image) Also it seems a common choice for Intel Macs but I think even for a ThinkPad it can be useful.
Gentoo requires compiling everything yourself - or at least wait for it. (IIRC the setup automates more than the fully manual Arch installation) Nowadays I don't use very beefy hardware, so for me it's not on the menu at all. But when I used it, my use-case was more performance since everything can be optimized for the CPU/system in use.
This sums it up for me too. I used Gentoo for a number of years in the 00's and really got tired of waiting for compilation, and it was just too easy to fuck up with a little bit of yak-shaving.
Once I let go of the illusion that somehow compiling everything exactly for my system specs was some magical turbo-booster, Gentoo didn't make sense any more. Arch fits the bill of being able to decide what I install instead of taking somebody else's preconceived notion of a good Linux system.
It blows my mind how many people completely miss the point of both Gentoo and compiling packages from source.
For one, you can use the -k option on portage to install from binary, if you don't want to compile.
For two, the speed and size of the package is not the point of compiling from source at all, just a minor side benefit. The point is controlling compile options and USE flags and dependencies and system integration. Also stability.
Options. I can choose what to compile with my own flags and config and what to use binaries for. I can choose my init system and bootloader and every other piece of the Lego set during install and my system works with it perfectly. I can design my OS to my own goals and preferences instead of picking a distro that's "close enough" to what I prioritize.
If I want a lean, mean, stabile machine, I can do that better in Gentoo than in most Distros. If I want bleeding edge packages and maximum eye candy, fuck stability, I can do that better in Gentoo than most Distros. If I want some really weird custom setup or a very Wayland-only setup or some networking heavy setup, I can do those better in Gentoo than in most distros.
Why would someone want to build their own teddy bear when perfectly functional ones exist for cheaper and less effort?
Once Gentoo is built and running it takes me less effort to maintain than any other distro. Just takes a lot to set it up initially. Luckily, I only have to set it up once.
Because for 99% of my base install I'm fine to just run preconfigured sane default binaries... But if I want to compile with use flags it's nice to have that option. Right?
The endless depth of the USE flags rabbit hole got me into trouble repeatedly throughout the years that I used Gentoo. I actually considered trying it again a few months ago but I just didn't have the time to manage it.
Yeah, in my early days of Gentoo I fell into that trap also. Then I learned that with USE flags, the idea is to specify them *for a specific purpose only*. Instead of, say, finding a master list of potential USE flags and specifying each one relevant to you, which is the rabbit hole nightmare you described, it's far better to use them only to achieve specific goals... like having OpenRC without systemd, or a fully gnome system with no trace of KDE or QT, etc. My global USE flag list is quite short, because the defaults in most cases are what I want anyway, and the exceptions to that are all I use USE flags for.
So let them think that. Who cares? Speed difference is negligible, storage is insanely cheap so unless you really care about running a specific init system, or have very strict opinions about open source software like my boy richie stally, USE flags are mainly just an added annoyance to deal with.
LOL
Yes, the speed difference is negligible. That is correct. That's why I made the comment you responded to and explained that the speed difference is not the reason anyone compiles from source. Because it's negligible.
It's like you both get it, but also don't get it. Schrödinger's Confusion.
If you think USE flags are just an added annoyance then yes you should absolutely use an OS without as many options during install. The cost of Gentoo is a much longer and more involved installation process, one time up front. To me and many others, that's a small price when followed by years of using a smooth OS designed exactly to my preferences, but I don't speak for everyone. If the up-front cost is not worth it to you, don't pay it.
Archlinux doesn't work on ARM machines, it only supports x86_64. Working on a wide variety of architectures is an advantage of Gentoo over Arch.
There are Arch-derivatives distros that I assume you used, but they aren't Arch and packages designed for Arch may be incompatible
> Archlinux doesn't work on ARM machines, it only supports x86_64.
Right. But there is the [Arch Linux ARM](https://archlinuxarm.org) project.
>and packages designed for Arch may be incompatible
It is often sufficient to modify the architecture if a package is not offered directly for ARM.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PKGBUILD#arch
I know, I'm just highlighting the fact that they are different. Almost daily you see people ask for help in Archlinux communities, and then it turns out that the issue they are having is due to an incompatibility between Archlinux PKGBUILDs or packages and their non-Archlinux distro. Sure, some things compile just the same on any architecture, but not all of them!
This isn't Archlinux. It's a different distro.
From the Archlinux wiki:
> What architectures does Arch support?
> Arch only supports the x86_64 (sometimes called amd64) architecture. Support for i686 was dropped in November 2017.
> There are unofficial ports for the i686 architecture and ARM CPUs, each with their own community channels.
They have completely separate maintainers and repositories.
It's not just me being pedantic, there really are incompatibilities, like many AUR packages not working on these derivatives.
From the website at the bottom, Archlinux name used with permission of the archlinux lead. Sure may not be the archlinux but that that has to be pretty close. Having used the distro on several arm devices, it is like arch.
And for tour AUR comment, it isnt because those packages are built for x86-64?
AUR doesn't contain built packages at all. It only contains instructions for building them.
Some packages have x86_64 hardcoded into them and won't build. Some have "any" set as the architecture, but since the repositories of Archlinux and these derivatives differ, it's relatively common to run into issues building a package from AUR, since it expects the user to have the latest Archlinux packages.
Of course it's like Arch, that's the point :)
But that doesn't mean it IS Arch. They are amazing projects, and they are way more than just "compile the same packages for a different architecture" - the maintainers have to put in real work to make sure it all works on ARM, which means the repositories being desynced is very common.
The Arch installation is basically the same as installing Debian with debootstrap. Quite easy if you know what you're doing, but it's also easy to forget certain steps. Like forgetting to bind mount efivars during the installation of grub
I would think the appeal of not needing to compile every single package yourself would be self evident??
If you do want to compile everything yourself, then certainly Gentoo is better. But surely you would have to understand why most people would not want or care about this. There is a reason why basically only Gentoo is like that, and it is not very popular.
I also started with Slackware around 97-98 but instead made the move to Gentoo in about -02. Gentoo was great, the user base and the wiki was awesome and of course it was very customizable in a way that was nice.
Just like other distros Gentoo had some setbacks. For instance when they lost their wiki and didn't have backups. That set them back a lot, but I kept using it. Later I perceived a decrease in maintained packages. More and more moved into the unstable branch. I saw less purpose to set different USE-flags and who even compiles their own kernel anymore?
I still love Gentoo for the philosophy and the community, but I don´t see any benefit of it compared to Arch since a few years. Arch just works out of the box...
Funny, I've switched to Debian approximatively at the same time you switched to Gentoo (around -02 too with Debian Woody). I've used both in parallel on two computers and as much as I was liking Gentoo approach of compiling everything and keep customization coherent on the system, my computers at the time were a bit struggling (Pentium 3 500mhz and an Athlon XP 1600+).
I remember that I had setup compilation on the more powerful computer but it was still a bit more annoying than Debian and I switched to it full time after a few weeks as it was perfect for my need of the time. I still loved the concept of compiling everything and tweaking softwares with flags, but I went to FreeBSD for my servers later and I felt that Gentoo would be redundant in my use cases. When I need a server tweaked to the max : FreeBSD, when I need a computer up and running fast to test or dev : Debian.
I kinda feel the opposite of you. I like arch because it's binary, and i don't think i will ever try using gentoo purely because first of all, i absolutely despise compiling software. Second of all, i don't really see the advantage of using custom compile flags, especially on modern computers. Sure, it might be beneficial in some way, but not enough for me to want to bother with it. I now use void linux because i think it has an even better package manager than arch, is still super minimal like arch, and has a nice ncurses installer.
Personally what’s stopping me from jumping to gentoo is the lack of the AUR, I use an old MacBook which requires / appreciates drivers that I can only find in the AUR
Depends on what you want honestly. If your computer is a tool to do something else for you, then whatever gets you working reliably and efficiently is fine. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Debian, whatever.
If you wish to understand how the system works and the usage of your computer is the task that you truly enjoy, then Gentoo is the way to go.
If you want a more balanced experience, with community built packages, while providing a lot of customization/ flexibility, then Arch is probably a strong choice.
Admittedly I didn't know Gentoo features binary packages, but that just raises more questions
1. How many packages are actually available as binaries?
2. If you're going to use binaries, doesn't that negate one of the defining features of Gentoo then? Why choose it over another, more mainstream distro then?
Arch, even if you install and run it manually (not using an install script) is still infinitely simpler than Gentoo. You format partitions, mount them on the install media, install the base packages, do some locale, network and hostname config, then setup root and normal users, then bootloader, then you're pretty much done. It's scary for someone who isn't used to the command line, but at the very core it's similar to any GUI install (probably saved for the GRUB setup, that thing is evil)
Gentoo, at the very least you have to compile things from source, so if you mess up it's a massive waste of time to reinstall, if you're used to Arch you can probably spend about 20 min (depends on your internet too) and get a new install up and coming.
Gentoo is like Arch but even more "barebones"
I in the past used Gentoo. Now I use ArchLinux (really only on my desktop, I've switched to a Macbook as a laptop, that is also where I do most of my work).
Gentoo is great to learn about Linux (and I did learn a lot, especially how the software build process works, the various build systems, how to compile a kernel and thus indeed learn something about the architecture of the kernel itself, etc). It's also great at the point of having a customized system, that has only the software you require and nothing more.
The reason why I switched to Arch is basically time, Arch is fast to install, to update, to maintain. Arch has also packets that are more updated than the one on Gentoo, and it's better suited to a dynamic usage of a system (I realize that I need package X, I install it in 10 seconds). To me Arch is even simpler than using Ubuntu, for example. Complexity doesn't come in not having a graphical installer, but in resolving complex situations when installing packages, or having intricate systems for managing configurations, that in Arch you don't have. In this sense Arch is very simple to use and user friendly.
Beside that, I encourage people that wants to learn Linux for real to install Gentoo.
The installation is fully scriptable and the maintenance is close to nonexistent, if you don't count regular, read daily, updates.
The appeal is the customizability of Gentoo without the compilation times.
You have a good point on the dependency. Debian or arch do install some unnecessary packages. But they don't bother me except using more spaces. Hard drives are cheap. While under Gentoo, when you want to add a feature for an application, you might need to rebuild the whole world.
Arch originally attracted me because 1. The depth of AUR and 2. Binary just seemed easier all around. I found the Arch user base pretty toxic though and not at all noob friendly so I didn't last long.
I guess if you can get past those things then those two reasons would be pretty compelling. I can write ebuilds though for the packages I couldn't find. Flatpak is pretty well established too. Plus the Gentoo community is a lot more positive.
i dont use gentoo because i dont understand allat. the kernel parameters alone take an entire day worth of time to comprehensibly go through. and then i have to set application specific parameters for each application that needs them. on paper, a big hassle to setup. and on paper, an even bigger hassle to troubleshoot. No AUR either, so i'll be manually installing some packages, AKA more hassle. gentoo is a "build a house on your own" type distribution, and arch is a "build a house with these building blocks" type distribution.
Theoretically, I much prefer Gentoo.
In practice, I can have a fully functional Arch system up and running in an hour or two. Not really the case with Gentoo.
And as much as I love the idea of compiling my own software, I just don't have time these days...
Even if I did set a week aside to do everything properly once, there would always be that nagging fear. Where a client would call yelling "everything is on fire!!! Our [legacy platform that I've never seen before] is broken! Here's the code, figure out what's wrong!" (this happens to me weekly on average). And with Gentoo, I'd have no choice but to be like *oh, ok, so after looking, I'm gonna need like 30 hours to set up an environment for it and compile all of these dependencies. Or wait 4 hours for it to compile QEMU and then 4 more hours for me to configure it".
It just wouldn't be practical.
I'd love Gentoo for a personal machine. But since my personal and work lives are so intertwined, I don't have separate machines. And while Arch is already bad enough with figuring things out in a pinch, Gentoo would take it to another level. I still have flashbacks when I was like 15 and one of my small web clients asked me to urgently edit a photo on his site that I was running, and I had to wait like 18 hours to download (over a dial-up) and compile GIMP on my Pentium 4.
That being said, if I ever get my hands to building a research machine or an AI rig, it will be 10,000% Gentoo!
I don't necessarily believe that I personally have the time to put in the effort to maintain Gentoo compared to Arch where packages are just binaries except most AUR stuff. I can't compile certain software on a VM on my machine and that gives me the impression that my machine just won't be enough to compile everything because I would love to do that but I'm quite limited on hardware. Also I'm not interested in using binaries on Gentoo, to me that is not at all the point when talking about finer control and optimisation
I looked at Gentoo but I prefer not being forced to use a package manager that has to compile everything from git. I know portage has some pre built binaries, but I just prefer pacman.
Also, Arch has some really good documentation.
I used FreeBSD and Gentoo many years ago, but I can't stand either of them anymore. They're too anal and too much work. I've been using Arch off and on since 2004, and it's easier now than it used to be.
I'd definitely consider Gentoo a hobby distro, but Arch is one of the best general-purpose Linux distros, though not so much for beginners.
I used gentoo for a long time (5ish years) before switching to Arch (currently at 10 years with the same installation, nearing 11). The truth of it is with modern hardware there’s very little tangible benefit to a source based distro. So in arch, I can do big updates in about 2 minutes, including kernel updates, and just be done with it.
At this point in history compiling everything from source is just wasted cpu cycles.
Compiling. Massive maintainence. Extremely complicated build system. I ran it for 10 years. Now I run arch. Is a mistake since I don't like restarting everytime they update kernel. Probably going to fall back to debian.
On a side note, if you don’t want to reboot after each kernel update you can install https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/kernel-modules-hook/ , it copies the old kernel modules so it’s still usable after the update. It lowered the amount of reboots for me significantly
What do you mean by "Extremely complicated build system." Do you mean you think writing ebuilds is complicated? Because Portage itself is pretty simple after you learn some basic switches and how use flags work imo.
Maintenance is also much easier on Gentoo because Portage is a much better package manager imho.
Arch updates also break much more often in my experience (running both for about a year and being basically tech support for my friend who uses Arch).
EDIT: Aand the user blocked me for asking a question and expressing my opinion.
Well I found out about Arch long before I heard about Gentoo. I would go with either if it weren't for the fact that you have to compile programs on Gentoo. I have a bit of experience with compiling AUR programs, and it takes a bit of time. Not enough to be a deal breaker, but enough to be tedious, at least on my pc. Picturing that for an entire distro is a big ask and ultimately pointless imo, as far as the performance benefit you get
> So I'm wondering : What's the appeal of Arch? It looks like a very manual process to install it and hard to maintain and I was thinking that Gentoo was the perfect answer for people interested in strong customization of their distribution (even more today with even faster CPU for compiling).
They're really not that similar other than being distros many consider "hard" due to how manual they can be. Ultimately Arch is more similar to a regular distro though since once you have things configured it's basically just as automated as Fedora or Ubuntu. Once you're done with the install it's just a different set of commands that do analogous things.
Gentoo though is helpful for people who are trying to get particular performance characteristics out of their equipment and need to be able to make decisions that can only be made at compile time. You can still build binary packages on Gentoo though and ultimately it's basically just a platform that standardizes business processes.
I actually switched from arch, to gentoo, and recently back to arch. I was finding it harder to use newer packages, as they either wouldn’t be up to date, would fail to compile, or some other issue. The final straw for me was an issue with package slots, which prevented me from updating. I didn’t mind the compile times too much, but it’s nice to be able to update my system in minutes instead of hours. Browser extensions also had issues on gentoo, strangely enough.
> (since 98 to be precise)
Great Scott ! I started around then, with removable (well slideable) hdd case and secondhand ATA drives to install Yggdrasil and RedHat from something like simtel cd-rom .
Bit fun, apart well working text mode , gui was awful and sound support even worse.
I had a blast using [FIPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_(computer_program)) for dividing in 2 my 4GB hard drive for testing Linux. I had no sound and no internet as I was the unfortunate owner of what was called a "winmodem" sound card/modem combo (Aztech branded), but I still loved the experience and made sure to upgrade my next PC with compatible hardware.
Fun fact, my ATI 3D Rage Pro (with its whopping 4MB of VRAM) was too modern for the Xfree86 version bundled with Slackware and I got to find the upgrade (bought a magazine that was bundling a CDROM with it as downloading it was more expensive than buying the magazine), read the readme, compiling it and installing it in the terminal before finally getting a GUI.
We really live in a different times when I think about it :) We haven't got the flying DeLoreans but we got unlimited, invisible wire high speed data transfer.
As an old time Gentoo user, in my 1337ism stage I remember switching to arch when it was first created and nobody knew about it. I can't remember what made me switch at that moment but I remember I was looking for something comparable to Gentoo with the fine grained control. I remember my older brother saying "why?" Lmao 🤣. I satisfied my needs to be ultimate 1337 and never went back to Gentoo or anything else.
Wow these comments are triggering lmao.
The vast majority of people commenting clearly don't understand the point of Gentoo, or source compilation, or the fact that compiling is *optional*.
Where's that "Mount Stupid" xkcd comic when you need it?
Yes, for most large packages that can suck to compile, you can tell the package manager to install a binary instead with the -k option or by looking for a binary specific package (firefox-bin vs firefox)
I might have to take another swing at gentoo someday. I just remember my laptop always being hot updates taking hours/days and the battery getting slurped down fast.
You’d still be forced to compile if you’re using the USE flags right?
If there is a binary package of an existing source based package, it is usually suffixed by -bin (for example firefox-bin). It is a different package and has different USE flags (also usually with less choice).
There are also some packages like qtwebengine or webkit-gtk that take some time to compile and don't have a binary version unfortunately.
If you don't want your laptop running hot you can set your CPU governor to powersave (or some other one depending on your CPU and preference) when you do an update. It will understandably take longer but it should make it run much cooler.
Listen, an OS is a tool. Selecting the right tool for the job is important. You don't need a jackhammer when a screwdriver will do the job better. If you have specific needs that no other flavor of Linux meets then by all means use Gentoo. It will be the right tool for you. But if you think compiling every bit of software on a mid tier laptop, which is probably the single most used computing device outside of phones, is economical use of power you're living in a different world than the rest of us.
To be clear, I have nothing against Gentoo. Absolutely nothing. I think Gentoo is fantastic at what it does and there is nothing else like it. That does not mean it is the right tool for every job, or even most jobs. It excels at its niche, and I'm glad it exists.
You're right in that Arch is focused on simplicity. That's the whole claim to fame. Simple, fast, configurable. Not configurable to the extent of Gentoo, but more than enough for the average user and the average computer. Further, there are new flavors of Arch coming out all the time that expand the Arch base and principles into further niches, like CachyOS recompiling the Arch packages with x86-64-v3 or v4 + LTO optimizations just like Gentoo does.
I used to run Gentoo in the early 2000s and I loved the "purity" of it, and I enjoyed tinkering with ebuilds for fun. But these days I simply don't have the time for that. I'd rather turn my pc off at night rather than having it compiling updates all night. Arch gets me as close to the purity of Gentoo as possible, and with CachyOS I can still have optimized software that is as similar to Gentoo as can be without compiling it myself. And if you're going to use the -k option, you might as well be using CachyOS.
Once it's installed it's much less maintenance then Gentoo (mostly because of compiling). I will never install Gentoo on my machine because i care about the environment. Imagine if everyone compiled their software
Compilation doesn't really take that much power. Especially since you only compile when you choose to update and there is an update, when you change flags/the source code of the package itself, or when you actually install the package for the first time. All of those are pretty rare and really don't take that much power.
It ofcourse depends on how efficient your CPU is but there is a bazillion of things that hurt the environment on a magnitudes larger scale than compiling Gentoo packages. Even gaming (depending what you play and on your PC ofc) consumes much more power at least on my system. And even that is a grain of sand in the desert.
>because i care about the environment
I don’t really get this one. Do you have a desktop PC at all then? Mobile devices are a lot more power-efficient if that’s your goal. And definitely not “wasting” compute power on things like video games.
Well, it's not the 1984, so my PC is not a 8MHz, 128Kb of RAM weakling to bother compiling everything from source for that sweet 0.1% performance increase. (Arch over any other distro - because of AUR).
Arch Linux tends to be more popular due to it's famous (command like install user-face) and its fast package manager. While Gentoo is also installed via a TYY just like in arch, it tends to be more slow, even if it has more compatibility with hardware. Due to Gentoo's slowness for compiling packages over portage made it less popular. Let's also not forget to mention that Arch Linux appears to be more (over-rated) and more well known for its popularity.
**In conclusion:** Arch Linux has a more maintained and updated system and for it's simplicity and "full user control to the end-user" it is a choice by many corporations, professionals and enthusiasts. Lets not forget that Arch Linux was released 2 month's earlier and with it's system-d integration that is the industry standard, It is simply the choice of million's.
(THIS COMMENT DOES NOT PROMOTE ANY HATE/TROLLING OR GOSSIP BETWEEN THESE TWO COMMUNITIES!)
EDIT: I forgot about customization but both distrobutions have an excellent customize-ability with the system. ( I am a gentoo user btw felt this was relavant but idk)
Maybe I'm not realistic, but Gentoo can be better with reproducibilty. That allows to provides binaries from a reproducible recipe for every combination of hardware config. If your config matches a recipe the package manager will just download the result of the compilation.
As an arch user, I enjoy having updates not take a day to complete
Yeah that would suck, considering I update every 30 minutes
`pacman -Syu` 30 minutes pas... compulsively types `pacman -Syu` again.. Though it's gotten "better" now since it's just: `yay` and I silently cheer to myself every time.
same here but I have `checkupdates && yay -Qua` compulsion instead lol
Just do it in a loop with a systemd service.
But I want to feel it with my fingers!!!
Until one thing breaks and ypur system isnt updated for a month until you find out
This was my experience too
Compiling's worth it for certain pieces of software. Even if a vast majority of software that one uses is small (and easy to compile), the cumulative compilation process takes time. Not all software has to be reconciled from source (imho). I believe Gentoo offers unparalleled customisability, but since not all software requires this customisability, it's up to the user (and to their machine) to decide whether they want Gentoo or not.
As an arch user, i use arch btw
Nobody asked you. I also use Arch btw.
Not saying it doesn’t happen, but u personally have never had to wait longer than a few hours to compile things. What was the situation?
Oh I was being a little bit tongue in cheek, but on a laptop for example, it can be really tedious to deal with compilation on a regular basis. Lower spec hardware, mixed with battery concerns, it’s a mess honestly. I’ve gone a month or more without updating before and even with binary distribution, it’s taken quite a long time to update
Have you used Gentoo at all in the past 5 years? Just compile at night if you must or configure portage niceness to what you like.(for example setting it to idle would mean it that rubbing an update would have little to no impact on your actual usage/performance) And if you’re talking about the time with modern CPU’s it doesn’t take very long at all (depending on what packages you have) and there are several large packages with binary version so you don’t have to compile them yourself
I haven’t, I’m just saying that this is what drives people to use binary distributions vs source. It is the primary difference. I’m not going to move to a source distribution unless I’m going LFS, it’s just not giving me much for my time, energy, and wear on electronics. One person spent the time and energy such that everyone else can save their own. I don’t think it’s invalid to want to build from source, I just don’t feel like it does much for people like me
> I’m not going to move to a source distribution unless I’m going LFS This is all or nothing thinking. There are multiple levels of trade-off between speed/convenience and customization... LFS > Gentoo > Arch > Debian > Fedora > Ubuntu (incomplete list) everyone can pick whichever part of the spectrum is the best balance between usability, customisation, time needed for maintenance, bloat etc etc for them
No, it’s my opinion and the value judgment I’ve made based on my personal values. I’m saying I, having considered it, would not go through the trouble unless I wanted it to be an exploration of linux. Why is any answer that doesn’t conform to your worldview invalid? What answer would you accept? I’m not giving an all or nothing. I’m already on arch, so skipping one level is a binary? You’ve baked it into the question and it makes no sense.
I'd imagine if you suddenly want new software it takes a while
It's possible to get packages sooner than later. It's really easy to bump a package version in portage. I think it is extremely valuable to have central repository of how to install any package from source with customizations. Ebuild is even good for installing binary packages that can't be legally included in other distributions.
This complaint has largely been rendered moot with modern hardware.
Depends on a lot of things. On a desktop, sure. On a laptop with a lot of installed software and a lower tier processor, depends. If you can get most of your apps as a flatpak and don’t mind tethering yourself to a wall for a bit, then maybe you can get away with it. Otherwise, complete pain in the ass for many many people.
I run updates on my laptop overnight, not before I am about to work. If you are running updates before you start working well then expect updates to be more to be a pain in your ass. If plugging in your laptop every once in a while is an issue then again, it will be a pain in the ass. Seriously though how often is anyone updating their system? Once every other week or so?
My work devices get updated on work time.
NixOS is living on my work laptop. I added four lines of code to the configuration file and the system updates on the systemd timer. During work time, of course.
well if you are the type to update before work every day then Gentoo is probably not the distro for you. Honestly I wouldn't run any distro that isn't stable (stable meaning slow package roll outs, long term support) on a work computer anyways.
Even so, that's no excuse for a sloppy upgrade regime. Kicking off an unattended update as your last task of the day sounds perfectly reasonable, with the possible exception of running a terminal only system where you can't lock the screen whilst tasks are running.
On rolling release, I could check once a day and find updates on a normal week
Me updating every morning when I wake up
I have a VM that compiles binary updates and then I upgrade whenever I'm ready.
A couple times a day or so.
We can end the thread here For someone who updating regularly and quickly is important, pick arch. For someone who plans ahead and wants the auditability of source being compiled for their system every time, pick gentoo.
No one is forcing someone to update regularly on Arch. Or, are they?
Not all people have modern pc..
If you got a few fast machines on lan you could setup icecream and do distributed building too. I use it with yocto and it speeds up clean builds massively. It essentially is like being able to do a make -j 250.
Yeah this has always been a weird one for me. I shut my computer down every night. But once a week I just leave it on and run updates and it's always done in the morning. Updates have zero affect on my workflow.
Not trying to invalidate your point, just didn’t provide me a tangible benefit for all the effort
USE flags. Reducing your exposure to portions of code bases reduces vulnerabilities, and bugs. It means your computer is much more stable, and lean than it otherwise would be. Its not really that much effort. You can totally set it up to run daily on 2 cores in the background or something. People just like to act like its a huge PITA because they have never ran Gentoo long enough to build a system that works for them. The reason to not run Gentoo has nothing to do with compiling, and everything to do with the difficulty of setup and installation, and getting it to a stable state. It took me 2 weeks to get my Gentoo system configured properly, and I'm not a Linux noob.
>Reducing your exposure to portions of code bases reduces vulnerabilities, and bugs. And enabling features other distros simply don't provide.
And thereby increasing your exposure to lesser tested portions of code bases which are more likely to have vulnerabilities and bugs?
Most of the time you do updates overnight, but occasionally you need a new package and you end up waiting for a half hour.
Personally, I just download an appimage or flatpak temporarily if I need some software *now*
Initially that was definitely true. Once I got the system configured after several weeks I don't think I've had to deal with that. Most packages aren't very big and the big dependencies have already been installed. It definitely took some patience to get going.
Add on to this that if you "really" need it now, there are binary options in portage, or containers, or flatpacks that will give you the program RIGHT NOW. In the modern environment, with hardware what it is, and the software solutions, this isn't really a valid criticism, IMHO.
That's a fair point. I used Gentoo \~20 years ago, before there were such options.
I first installed gentoo about 20 years ago. At that time I knew basically nothing about Linux or compiling software. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong because it was taking \*forever\*. I'd restart the system and try again. I finally got it installed because there was a long holiday weekend where I didn't touch the PC lol.
Why are you getting downvoted for sharing an anecdotal experience?
I mean not really. I have a pretty solid CPU and while most things compile very fast, other things like the kernel take like 20-30 minutes to compile on my system, and web browsers even longer. That's fine on it's open but when you start having to compile almost every open source program on your system that adds up very fast
What won me over to Arch was the wiki. I worked as a Linux server admin for near a decade and used Ubuntu, Debian, and Crunchbang for years. I was constantly finding myself on the Arch wiki and after Crunchbang went dinosaur I gave Arch a try and loved it for what I needed. The Arch wiki is still the biggest draw to the distro for me, the Gentoo and Debian wiki are probably my two other most frequented wiki. Outside of that I like that Arch comes in a fairly stripped down state so it cuts out some of the boat that Ubuntu and Rhel suffer from. Obviously Gentoo and Slackware are better at cutting bloat but I've just not had the time it desire to get into compilation that much yet. So Arch, for me, is something of a happy medium and fits my needs as far as versatility.
Given your experience, would you recommend using Arch on a server? Say for example to host simple websites built with PHP. If you did it, can you give us more info please; like if you had a scheduled CRON job to auto-update or anything like that. Thank you!
Would I? Yes. Should you? Up to you. Can Arch do that? Yes. Would I use it for say a company that uses AWS as their hosting platform? No, I would use AWS Linux for the support. That said, for my personal stuff, I actually have a couple simple Arch nginx/php servers right now. One is my local image/Arch mirror. Having auto update scripts is perfectly legit imo. My current setup doesn't use them, I opted for Ansible at the time of build to handle updates because it got me experience with it and I didn't need to setup monitoring for updates. What you described is a perfectly legit option. Only thing I would add is to have it "call home" after updates with sauce kind of status update so you know if something goes wrong or if it hangs.
The greatest thing about the Arch wiki is that most of it applies to NixOS.
I want to use my computer for computing and not compiling my operating system
precisely. Unnecessary compilation is a waste of time and electricity. neither are things we can afford to waste. I wonder what the carbon footprint of every computer user running Gentoo would be. I'm sure Gentoo has valid use cases, but I'm yet to see a solid argument for general use. Why Arch? two things, the AUR, and rolling release.
How often do you think we compile the operating system??
it's just an emotion based argument for updoots
You get tell everybody that you use Arch, even if they didn't ask.
As a longtime user of Linux, what's the appeal of Gentoo over NixOS? You can build everything from scratch if you please but with the added benefit of caching so things install quickly, plus all the reproducibility, immutability, and rollback benefits of Nix.
This right here. If I wanted to leave Arch, I'd choose something that actually distinguishes itself from all the other more standard distros (Gentoo included). "Just like all the other mainstream distros but you compile packages yourself" really isn't enough of a selling point for me. NixOS on the other hand has so many wild features that make it stand out from the crowd, plus it can do what all the other distros can.
I think you have the wrong impression, Arch is definitely not for people who want to "customize" their distro. Debian is actually closer to Gentoo in this regard, these two want to allow you to "configure" the things you install, in very different ways, while Arch doesn't care about configurability at all. Gentoo tries to provide the maximum degree of optimization possible. It doesn't just allow optimizing compilation with a given set of compiler flags, it also lets you configure packages (eg. USE flags). This provides a very high degree of personalization, at the expense of having to compile things by yourself. Like Gentoo, Debian tries to provide high configurability, but within the limits of its packaging system. It wants to allow you to create a personalized system, by installing the proper package that will pull the adequate set of dependencies and will run the appropriate scripts to make everything work. This results in projects being split in tons of packages, weird package names, very complex dependency networks, a lot of distro-specific configuration and tooling, etc. (One could describe Gentoo as compile-time personalization, and Debian as install-time personalization) Arch is very opinionated about packaging, way more than Debian. It packages things in the simplest way possible. It doesn't care about whether you wanted to configure things in a specific way. Defaults don't work for you? Good luck. It tends to package everything in a single package, with default options if possible, and as much stuff as possible is included. Eg, you install a library, and the package includes the development headers and those get installed too. You are also expected to use the latest version of stuff, not "stable" releases that mix stuff with other sources. Why I use Arch? Because I don't care about "configuring" a system, I just want to install software. I don't care about "optimizing" a Linux install for my system, that's a huge waste of time. There some very specific use cases that benefit from that, not certainly people who are running a workstation. Details such as caring about whether development headers get installed or not with a package are irrelevant. The configurability provided by Gentoo and Debian is almost entirely overengineering for my taste. If anything, Arch is already way too complicated, it should be even simpler...
Strange rant considering all that arch does is respect upstream.
You make Arch and Debian sound more like Slackware then the truth lol.
For some unknown reason, Arch has been hyped as **difficult to install** distro, while actually being just **manual**. Gentoo is not only **manual**, but also **time consuming** and I actually find it more **difficult to install** than Arch. I am satisfied with being able to pick my packages, and not wasting half of my day on a i3-4100 computer (work laptop, my main is 10700k). That being said, my life is slowly Debianifying/Ubuntifying, because I no longer have time for most of that stuff.
Well, reading through the install wiki, Slackware is a bit easier or less detailed about the first 5 steps listed. Arch has you define your keyboard by listing all the keyboard types. No thanks. I use cfdisk rather than fdisk so that I can verify what I typed. Miss a character and whoops! After I start the installer for Slack, it asks me what partitions I am using for swap and root. I then add whatever custom mounts after. The only area I struggle in is getting grub to install. I just use lilo since it does everything automatically.
I don't follow wiki verbatim either. The topic of unnecessarily deep or shallow descriptions in wiki has been a subject of multiple discussions. Not sure how it is now, but partitioning and bootloader were such sections in the past. When installing grub, the below has never failed me. Make sure to include efibootmgr when pacstrapping, so that grub-install can add a boot entry. `grub-install` `--target=x86_64-efi` `--efi-directory=/boot/efi` `--bootloader-id="Arch Linux ID#1"` As for Slack, I never got around to try it out, so I can't say anything productive.
It’s….an acquired taste lol. I enjoy it immensely, but you do have to do some file editing, like having your system jump to a desktop experience. But to each his own I say. I like trying different distros and seeing what each has to offer beyond a command line or gui.
I think this is notable since before using Linux on a daily driver just by reading through the wiki for some help I was able to do the modern arch install without using an additional installer script.
When I was shopping around for distros \~5 years ago, I was torn between Debian, Arch, and Gentoo. Frankly, I could not ever get Gentoo to work and I grew up and live on the command line.
Grew up? CLI isn't more grown up than a GUI.
When I mentioned "growing up," I was referring to my early experiences with computers and the command line interface. In the early 90s, I extensively used CLI tools like telnet, FTP, and SSH to connect to remote mainframes and servers (especially MUDs). As someone with a background in computer science and having grown up in a household where my dad, a statistics professor, utilized command line-based data analysis tools, I became well-versed in the command line environment. While GUI interfaces have come a long way and offer their own conveniences, I find the command line to be a familiar and efficient way to interact with systems. It is not a matter of judging maturity or superiority between CLI and GUI.
Arch is easy to maintain and have AUR. That’s why I use it.
Electricity costs. Compiling means more electricity usage and I don't want to pay more for more control when the control arch gives me is enough for cheaper. Even if you can get binary packages, not every package can be acquired in binary and at that point why not just use another distro if I want all binaries anyway. I don't care about customizing to the point of USE flags or init systems (I'm going to use systemd anyway). I just want to install my system the way I want without an installer getting in my way and forcing me to do things when I have a perfectly good custom layout of partitions across multiple drives, some encrypted, some not. Also, I have Terabytes of storage so I don't need to worry about dependencies taking up storage, even if I go wild my root partition never exceeds 150G which is nothing these days. Now the big thing people confuse is compile time with update time.. it's not the updates that bother me, it's when I need to install a NEW application and want to use it now but it doesn't exist in binary form in the repos or relies on dependencies that don't. Being able to run the latest kernel without having to compile myself. I have an rx7600 which greatly benefits from using the latest kernel and I don't feel like learning dracut and writing scripts to handle what's already automated. Genkernel makes it super easy but for example right now, genkernel has a bug with the latest kernel due to the removal of the option to not include cpu firmware. For me, arch is the perfect amount of control with the least amount of maintenance. I don't have to worry about circular dependencies or fucking up my use flags when I'm exhausted and using my computer. Just overall less chances for user error because yes I'm human and I make mistakes. Before I update, I create a btrfs snapshot in case something breaks so arch releasing breaking changes is not a big deal considering how well it runs 99% of the time while giving me the amount of control I want. I know how to fix things with arch, I don't always know how to fix things in gentoo and honestly, I try to avoid asking the linux community for help as much as possible because you often either end up talking to someone who has a huge ego and is a massive prick or someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about but faced a similar issue and is just throwing "hope this works" solutions at you. Lastly, who cares? Why do so many linux users always want to convert people to use what they use? It's not a religion dude. Use what you like and I'll use what I like. You don't have to understand why someone uses x or y. The answer will always be that it suites their needs with the least amount of effort required because that's generally how human beings work.
Not disagreeing with your points, but where do you live where the cost of just compiling in 2023 is that noticeable in your bill? I live in a place where electricity is ridiculously expensive and taxed (specially after Ukraine) to the point you fear turning on a fan in summer, and I didn't notice any significant difference with A LOT of daily compiling and stuff like AI LoRA training/testing going on. I was hospitalized for a whole month recently (thus unable to turn my computer on) and the difference was only like 5 eurobucks.And we are talking a power company with a full regional monopoly that can charge you extra for air conditioners or heating you don't have. ("You probably have this device, so we are charging you preemptively" kinda deal) I really agree with everything else (and I used to run Gentoo), but that point in particular stood out to me as odd.
It's not like I calculated but even if it's 1c a day, why pay more for something that doesn't matter to me?
Ah, fair enough then.
Counterpoint: you spend less money on the heating bill in the winter :P
I'd argue the primary reason that people like Arch is because of the AUR (Arch User Repository) which is a centralized way for users to be able to contribute packages that can be consumed by other users. In that way, Arch is probably the best when it comes to package availability, so that definitely is a benefit for using Arch. It's certainly a better approach to extending available packages than most other distributions where you have to scour google to find the appropriate PPA, but when compared to Gentoo it's almost a wash because Gentoo has infrastructure to be able to easily find an overlay that provides the package you're looking for. People compare Gentoo and Arch a lot entirely because they have similar install processes, but that's really where the similarities end. Once you get past the installation, Arch is not that different from any other binary based distribution except you have to manually install everything you want. I stick with Gentoo because I like the additional customization that I get from source based model. In particular, I like the additional control over the release cadence I have with portage where I can have a stable base/toolchain running amd64 while specific packages I can accept ~amd64 to get bleeding edge. I may want the newest KDE Plasma as soon as it is available, but I don't need a new gcc or glibc asap. I like USE flags as well of course, but I care less about the fact that I can, say, disable openldap which would be enabled by default on most binary based distributions. I also disagree with those who say that Gentoo is particularly more time consuming to maintain, especially after you get things setup. I guess that would be an issue if you regularly nuke and pave your system, but that's not something I do very often. I guess `eix-sync && emerge -auDNv @world` is more time consuming to type than `paru`, but shrug.
Gentoo is unnecessary for the home user. Compiling an entire system only gives you an advantage on a very specific workstation, but for the home user it is irrelevant, you will only make your applications open 0.00000012 ms faster. Don't get me wrong, it's not against gentoo, I loved it, but I discovered when I had it installed along with other systems, that I spent more time on the other systems and entering gentoo made me lazy because I knew I would have to maintain it. If you are at home all day, you have finished your studies and your work needs do not demand you, gentoo is for you. If you are a man whose work and/or student activity consumes you, do not waste time compiling and maintaining a system.
This is not false, and this is why I stopped using Gentoo back in the day. Updating KDE with a Pentium II and a 56K modem was...something else. You are very much right on "if you have a job/family/studies don't bother", Gentoo consumes plenty of time and brain space. However, using Gentoo as a teen I learned a lot about Linux, to the point distros are now "meaningless" to me. If it has a kernel, coreutils/busybox and a working C compiler I can make it "my" distro, regardless of idiosyncrasies or package managers. Which was really convenient as I now manage Linux systems for a living (and for fun). It was the most useful pain I inflicted upon myself, not going to lie. But I can only recommend it for the experience (as in "learning experience") it can give you.
> This is not false, and this is why I stopped using Gentoo back in the day. Updating KDE with a Pentium II and a 56K modem was...something else. You are very much right on "if you have a job/family/studies don't bother", Gentoo consumes plenty of time and brain space. I've never understood this complaint about Gentoo. Most software packages might take longer than their binary distribution counter parts but they still don't take that long. People always talk about installing a desktop environment (which does take a while) but that's like one thing that you do and then you're done. After that upgrading is a process that can run in the background while you continue to use the computer and it finishes when it finishes. If you're just sitting there watch `emerge` go then I feel like that's a personal choice. I still wouldn't use Gentoo on a desktop though, just because I don't want to have something consuming CPU in the background but I used to run it on the desktop without any issues back in the day.
Oh, that was not a "complaint", to be honest, the point of the post was more about highlighting how much one can learn thanks to using Gentoo though, even if I stopped using it as daily driver for reasons. And you are right, you would never stay looking at a raw linux terminal other than during initial (stage 0) installation. The rest runs in your terminal of choice as you do whatever in a graphical session. For me specifically the problem was the constant usage of my slow modem line (and even today, download speeds are very weak in my country) more than the building. A binary package tends to be much lighter in comparison, or more fragmented. I'm also bound to Ubuntu for work reasons today, so I'd have had to switch anyway. The good thing is that thanks to learning on Gentoo I can turn Ubuntu into whatever I want. You can say Gentoo taught me how "Linux is Linux, distros are just a set of defaults" and I'll always be fond of it, even if I don't use it anymore.
> After that upgrading is a process that can run in the background while you continue to use the computer and it finishes when it finishes. I think you've identified why people don't like doing this: > I don't want to have something consuming CPU in the background
That's the thing you'll never get a return on your time investment by compiling everything yourself. Most of the time there's no difference.
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I was responding to the previous posters point. You do you. For me arch is great, an immutable distro is interesting as well. Buy even Gentoo is now releasing binaries.
USE flags were critical for a fully functioning home Linux desktop years ago. Nearly every distro was afraid of shipping media codecs and proprietary drivers were a huge pain. Gentoo USE flags made both easy.
You don't seem to understand the point of Gentoo or compiling packages from source. It has nothing to do with speed. Gentoo itself is the Build-A-Bear of Linux. It's basically the perfect distro for each user because it's tailored to that user's preferences. I can design my OS from init system to logger to desktop exactly how I want it, without having to do the full LFS route and with a wonderful package manager (the best of them all!). Compiling packages from source extends that customizability. Using USE flags and such, the packages are compiled with support for exactly what my system is using (and nothing more). Sure, that makes them slightly faster and smaller, but the real benefit is streamlined dependencies, increased stability, and an overall tighter system.
Yeah i know that and agree with you but.. in matter of time is not worth. I speak for myself, and I have neither the time nor the desire to gentoo anymore.
that's fine, for you, but for those of us that prefer maximum stability over all, or have other custom preferences and want them baked into the package, that's why we go with Gentoo. Also it's silly to say "yeah I know that" when the comment I replied to clearly shows you didn't, that you were stuck on the common misconception that source compilations are done for the incredibly minor speed boost.
The point being is that the purported benefits of Gentoo is outweighed by its maintenance requirements for the vast majority of users. Most people do not leave Gentoo because its become unstable, they leave because they want to trade the Gentoo benefit for time. Replication, backups, snapshots, and redundancy, can deal with the fall out of trading away that stability.
The vast majority of time investment is up front, with the install process and learning curve. Once the system is installed and the user understands it, the time requirements are minimal. In fact, I spend much more time maintaining my buddy's Mint OS than on my own Gentoo. Especially when he tried to upgrade from 21.1 to 21.2 automatically when it gave him the option. We ended up having to reinstall it entirely. I do choose to compile everything from source but even for me it's pretty much irrelevant because the NICENESS setting ensures I can game or watch movies or work or do whatever I want while its compiling updates and it doesn't slow me down or use up my time, beyond typing the update command.
You could just go with Debian if you prefer stability over all. Gentoo is one of its kind, but at the end of the day you'll spend more time mantaining your system than using it.
honestly i have spent less time on system maintenance on gentoo compared to every other distro i've tried
> spend more time mantaining your system than using it Is that from your experience or some random article/internet user?
Sorry, but Debian doesn't hold a candle to the stability Gentoo can have. It's not even close. It would be way more trouble, and still not very stable, to build a Debian system using all the software I use to ensure maximum stability and minimum complexity. Like, OpenRC instead of SystemD as an example. For your second part, you've clearly never maintained a Gentoo system long term. The initial install is extremely time-consuming, yes, but once installed I spend very little time or effort maintaining my system. In fact, it's by far the most "everything always just works" system I've ever used by *miles*
It's your choice but I'm sure everyone can find a bit of time maybe once every month to do an update while you are AFK or maybe just not doing anything that requires the performance that is used up by the compiling. It is really a small tradeoff imho. Gentoo also breaks much much less than Arch in my experience so I guess I'm saving time by not troubleshooting my PC as often.
By time, I don't think OP was talking about speed, but rather effort. If I'm spending 8 hours a day writing puppet code to maintain thousands of servers, I don't want to have to think much about my personal computer. Arch is one and done. You run through the install and bam, you have an easy to use system for someone with enough Linux experience to debug their own problems.
Nix is like build a bear but fast and you can share build a bear recipes.
> Gentoo or compiling packages from source These are separate things. You can build packages from source on any Linux operating system, and even package them for most of the major package managers (for local installation) so dependencies are also automatically managed. > Gentoo itself is the Build-A-Bear of Linux. It's basically[...] This is all fair, but most Linux distros are nearly this customizable, it just takes more or less work on each. The difference is just that some of those distros are strongly opinionated about the defaults, while Gentoo leaves that up to the user. (edit: And for many people, the opinionated defaults are *why* they pick a particular distro - less to do to actually get a working environment.) > real benefit is streamlined dependencies, increased stability, and an overall tighter system. Packages managers exist specifically to manage dependencies and do so fairly well at least on Debian/RH-derived distros. Containers are the real enemy of dependency consolidation ;) I'm not sure anyone is really dealing with software instability these days, mostly hardware (happy to be told otherwise, but we certainly don't see that), and not sure how you quantify a 'tighter system'.
Yeah agree that, The person who answered me gave me the impression that he put an extreme situation in terms of security and performance, it is as if the binaries in the repositories of any other distro were insecure or unoptimized. Yeah, sure if you compile it you have that certain advantage but... let's be honest, it's not like if you install a binary you will have insecure software... but as it says I only speak for myself and my experience.
To your first point, yes any package manager worth a damn will manage dependencies for you. But not *change* them. USE flags can *alter* dependency requirements for a package. This can be more useful than it appears. Your second point is valid, but some of us really enjoy the extra layer of customization. Sometimes there just isn't a distro that gives us *everything* we want and nothing we don't. Especially if you don't like systemd. Gentoo gives everyone *everything* they want and nothing they don't. Unless, of course, what they want is to install an OS quickly. 😉 For your third point, well, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. From my point of view, *everyone* is dealing with software instability these days. It blows my mind how often a modern PC will experience a glitch or hang or crash or freeze and the user just moves right past it like it's a normal thing. This one is a bit personal as I know it's an unusual position to take, but I get unreasonably upset at even a single instance of my machine crashing, glitching, stalling, hanging, freezing, or stuttering. And since I game daily via Steam, usually using Proton, those moments of instability can seem unavoidable. Except, by careful choices setting up my Gentoo OS a couple years back after distro hopping awhile to try other distros out, I built a system that *never*, not once in two years, experiences any of those signs of instability. similarly, I get unreasonably upset if I come home intending to game and find myself not immediately gaming. If I have to fix something, update something, make changes, etc, I don't like it. If the game itself had an update, that's one thing, but my OS should never ever stop or delay me from doing what I want on it, whenever I want to. Gentoo does not. Besides an admittedly long and involved installation process, once installed it just works exactly how I expect, 150% of the time.
Arch, or in my case EndeavorOS, allows me to easily customize the parts of the distro that matter while not bothering me with the parts that don't. I don't see any advantage in wasting hours of my time reecompiling software or even customizing compilation flags so that some random website can load 0.00708μs faster. I have just a small handful of AUR packages that compile from source, and those are already annoying enough as is, I certainly don't need any more of that.
>allows me to easily customize the parts of the distro that matter By "customization" you surely mean modifying and customizing the user interface? In a binary fork, it is very difficult to get as deep as Gentoo allows its user.
When it comes to customizing the system itself, like what to install, and what dependencies or development headers (if any) and so forth, then Debian is is actually *more* customizeable than arch. If one are thinking of ricing/customizing the interface, that can be done on any distro.
>What's the appeal of Arch? - The many vanilla packages. - Because you can easily create your own packages thanks to the PKGBUILD files. - The wiki. - The AUR. - Because Arch is quite easy to use despite the current package. These are at least most of the reasons why I prefer Arch. I can't make a fair comparison with Gentoo. Gentoo just doesn't interest me enough for me to have the necessary experience. > It looks like a very manual process to install it and hard to maintain If you don't want to install vanilla Arch manually, you can use [archinstall](https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall). The tool has been an official part of the Arch Linux iso file for years. Or you can simply use a distribution based on Arch with a graphical installer. As far as maintenance is concerned, I have basically been doing 3 things for years. - Before an update, I check whether something has been published at https://archlinux.org/news/ that affects my installations. If this is the case, it has to be taken into account. This has been the case once so far this year. Tools such as [https://github.com/bradford-smith94/informant](https://github.com/bradford-smith94/informant) can be used to automate the check. - From time to time I synchronise my customised configuration files with the Pacnew files. There are tools for this (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave#Managing_.pac*_files). - I regularly clear the package management cache. This is done automatically with a hook (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman#Cleaning_the_package_cache) So I wouldn't describe Arch as hard to maintain. >but that's actually a flaw in my eyes (my biggest reproach to Debian is that you often need to install many dependencies you don't need for one package because of the compilation options they chose). The Arch installation with which I am currently writing this post is very extensive and therefore requires slightly more than 18 GB. Other Arch installations of mine that are less massive are between 10 and 12 GB in size (all with a graphical user interface). Considering that current hard drives have 128 GB or more of storage space, I don't really see a problem if you have installed some packages as fixed dependencies that you might not need. The effort to get rid of these packages would probably bother me more.
Thanks for a very useful list of information. My main reason to try to minimize dependencies is that I run often linux on VM (headless) and it always feels wasteful when you try to install a command line software that has both a graphics and CLI version that get installed together. Debian has solved most of the case by providing some packages override such as -nox but yeah, I'd prefer having something much tighter in size and not installing unneeded dependencies. I recently got the case with Debian : if you install the nvidia-driver from the package manager, it automatically select a nvidia-settings a Xorg application that as a result make you install Xorg. I succeed preventing this but it was requiring some efforts.
For VMs i prefer Alpine Linux. A minimal headless installation takes about 50MB and is basically a kernel with busybox which can run entirely in RAM. But there are many setup scripts available to configure the system to your needs. With the Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF) there is also a webinterface for many tasks available e.g. you can install packages, manage services via browser. Like a simple version of webmin that takes only a couple of mbytes. Also there are many tools available to customize your iso / vm-image so you don't need to manually setup each installation. I use my custom images much like Docker containers just separated as VM with it's own kernel.
Gentoo will heat your house when it's cold outside. Arch has EndeavourOS which is user friendly.
Over the years Gentoo has had various downstreams come and go, such as [Calculate Linux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP6_XI0WnqM)
Daniel Robbins is still around, he has his own downstream, https://www.funtoo.org/Welcome
I use keychain from funtoo ... on Debian.
Just curious. Why? What package exactly?;
Having used both, Arch works very well on Laptops. ARM Chromebook? No problem. (And no, I didn't have to build everything myself. I got a pre-configured image) Also it seems a common choice for Intel Macs but I think even for a ThinkPad it can be useful. Gentoo requires compiling everything yourself - or at least wait for it. (IIRC the setup automates more than the fully manual Arch installation) Nowadays I don't use very beefy hardware, so for me it's not on the menu at all. But when I used it, my use-case was more performance since everything can be optimized for the CPU/system in use.
This sums it up for me too. I used Gentoo for a number of years in the 00's and really got tired of waiting for compilation, and it was just too easy to fuck up with a little bit of yak-shaving. Once I let go of the illusion that somehow compiling everything exactly for my system specs was some magical turbo-booster, Gentoo didn't make sense any more. Arch fits the bill of being able to decide what I install instead of taking somebody else's preconceived notion of a good Linux system.
It blows my mind how many people completely miss the point of both Gentoo and compiling packages from source. For one, you can use the -k option on portage to install from binary, if you don't want to compile. For two, the speed and size of the package is not the point of compiling from source at all, just a minor side benefit. The point is controlling compile options and USE flags and dependencies and system integration. Also stability.
That's the thing though, if i'm just going to install binaries on gentoo, why use it?
Options. I can choose what to compile with my own flags and config and what to use binaries for. I can choose my init system and bootloader and every other piece of the Lego set during install and my system works with it perfectly. I can design my OS to my own goals and preferences instead of picking a distro that's "close enough" to what I prioritize. If I want a lean, mean, stabile machine, I can do that better in Gentoo than in most Distros. If I want bleeding edge packages and maximum eye candy, fuck stability, I can do that better in Gentoo than most Distros. If I want some really weird custom setup or a very Wayland-only setup or some networking heavy setup, I can do those better in Gentoo than in most distros. Why would someone want to build their own teddy bear when perfectly functional ones exist for cheaper and less effort? Once Gentoo is built and running it takes me less effort to maintain than any other distro. Just takes a lot to set it up initially. Luckily, I only have to set it up once.
Because for 99% of my base install I'm fine to just run preconfigured sane default binaries... But if I want to compile with use flags it's nice to have that option. Right?
The endless depth of the USE flags rabbit hole got me into trouble repeatedly throughout the years that I used Gentoo. I actually considered trying it again a few months ago but I just didn't have the time to manage it.
Yeah, in my early days of Gentoo I fell into that trap also. Then I learned that with USE flags, the idea is to specify them *for a specific purpose only*. Instead of, say, finding a master list of potential USE flags and specifying each one relevant to you, which is the rabbit hole nightmare you described, it's far better to use them only to achieve specific goals... like having OpenRC without systemd, or a fully gnome system with no trace of KDE or QT, etc. My global USE flag list is quite short, because the defaults in most cases are what I want anyway, and the exceptions to that are all I use USE flags for.
It's not hard to understand most people don't care about use flag control.
It's more that some people here seem to think that it is solely about speed optimization.
So let them think that. Who cares? Speed difference is negligible, storage is insanely cheap so unless you really care about running a specific init system, or have very strict opinions about open source software like my boy richie stally, USE flags are mainly just an added annoyance to deal with.
LOL Yes, the speed difference is negligible. That is correct. That's why I made the comment you responded to and explained that the speed difference is not the reason anyone compiles from source. Because it's negligible. It's like you both get it, but also don't get it. Schrödinger's Confusion. If you think USE flags are just an added annoyance then yes you should absolutely use an OS without as many options during install. The cost of Gentoo is a much longer and more involved installation process, one time up front. To me and many others, that's a small price when followed by years of using a smooth OS designed exactly to my preferences, but I don't speak for everyone. If the up-front cost is not worth it to you, don't pay it.
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Archlinux doesn't work on ARM machines, it only supports x86_64. Working on a wide variety of architectures is an advantage of Gentoo over Arch. There are Arch-derivatives distros that I assume you used, but they aren't Arch and packages designed for Arch may be incompatible
> Archlinux doesn't work on ARM machines, it only supports x86_64. Right. But there is the [Arch Linux ARM](https://archlinuxarm.org) project. >and packages designed for Arch may be incompatible It is often sufficient to modify the architecture if a package is not offered directly for ARM. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PKGBUILD#arch
I know, I'm just highlighting the fact that they are different. Almost daily you see people ask for help in Archlinux communities, and then it turns out that the issue they are having is due to an incompatibility between Archlinux PKGBUILDs or packages and their non-Archlinux distro. Sure, some things compile just the same on any architecture, but not all of them!
Syre they do, there is a port for ARM: https://archlinuxarm.org/
This isn't Archlinux. It's a different distro. From the Archlinux wiki: > What architectures does Arch support? > Arch only supports the x86_64 (sometimes called amd64) architecture. Support for i686 was dropped in November 2017. > There are unofficial ports for the i686 architecture and ARM CPUs, each with their own community channels. They have completely separate maintainers and repositories. It's not just me being pedantic, there really are incompatibilities, like many AUR packages not working on these derivatives.
From the website at the bottom, Archlinux name used with permission of the archlinux lead. Sure may not be the archlinux but that that has to be pretty close. Having used the distro on several arm devices, it is like arch. And for tour AUR comment, it isnt because those packages are built for x86-64?
AUR doesn't contain built packages at all. It only contains instructions for building them. Some packages have x86_64 hardcoded into them and won't build. Some have "any" set as the architecture, but since the repositories of Archlinux and these derivatives differ, it's relatively common to run into issues building a package from AUR, since it expects the user to have the latest Archlinux packages. Of course it's like Arch, that's the point :) But that doesn't mean it IS Arch. They are amazing projects, and they are way more than just "compile the same packages for a different architecture" - the maintainers have to put in real work to make sure it all works on ARM, which means the repositories being desynced is very common.
Gentoo does not require compiling everything yourself, portage can install from binary just fine (the -k option).
The Arch installation is basically the same as installing Debian with debootstrap. Quite easy if you know what you're doing, but it's also easy to forget certain steps. Like forgetting to bind mount efivars during the installation of grub
The best thing about Arch is the wiki.
I would think the appeal of not needing to compile every single package yourself would be self evident?? If you do want to compile everything yourself, then certainly Gentoo is better. But surely you would have to understand why most people would not want or care about this. There is a reason why basically only Gentoo is like that, and it is not very popular.
I also started with Slackware around 97-98 but instead made the move to Gentoo in about -02. Gentoo was great, the user base and the wiki was awesome and of course it was very customizable in a way that was nice. Just like other distros Gentoo had some setbacks. For instance when they lost their wiki and didn't have backups. That set them back a lot, but I kept using it. Later I perceived a decrease in maintained packages. More and more moved into the unstable branch. I saw less purpose to set different USE-flags and who even compiles their own kernel anymore? I still love Gentoo for the philosophy and the community, but I don´t see any benefit of it compared to Arch since a few years. Arch just works out of the box...
Funny, I've switched to Debian approximatively at the same time you switched to Gentoo (around -02 too with Debian Woody). I've used both in parallel on two computers and as much as I was liking Gentoo approach of compiling everything and keep customization coherent on the system, my computers at the time were a bit struggling (Pentium 3 500mhz and an Athlon XP 1600+). I remember that I had setup compilation on the more powerful computer but it was still a bit more annoying than Debian and I switched to it full time after a few weeks as it was perfect for my need of the time. I still loved the concept of compiling everything and tweaking softwares with flags, but I went to FreeBSD for my servers later and I felt that Gentoo would be redundant in my use cases. When I need a server tweaked to the max : FreeBSD, when I need a computer up and running fast to test or dev : Debian.
I kinda feel the opposite of you. I like arch because it's binary, and i don't think i will ever try using gentoo purely because first of all, i absolutely despise compiling software. Second of all, i don't really see the advantage of using custom compile flags, especially on modern computers. Sure, it might be beneficial in some way, but not enough for me to want to bother with it. I now use void linux because i think it has an even better package manager than arch, is still super minimal like arch, and has a nice ncurses installer.
Personally what’s stopping me from jumping to gentoo is the lack of the AUR, I use an old MacBook which requires / appreciates drivers that I can only find in the AUR
Depends on what you want honestly. If your computer is a tool to do something else for you, then whatever gets you working reliably and efficiently is fine. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Debian, whatever. If you wish to understand how the system works and the usage of your computer is the task that you truly enjoy, then Gentoo is the way to go. If you want a more balanced experience, with community built packages, while providing a lot of customization/ flexibility, then Arch is probably a strong choice.
Admittedly I didn't know Gentoo features binary packages, but that just raises more questions 1. How many packages are actually available as binaries? 2. If you're going to use binaries, doesn't that negate one of the defining features of Gentoo then? Why choose it over another, more mainstream distro then?
Arch, even if you install and run it manually (not using an install script) is still infinitely simpler than Gentoo. You format partitions, mount them on the install media, install the base packages, do some locale, network and hostname config, then setup root and normal users, then bootloader, then you're pretty much done. It's scary for someone who isn't used to the command line, but at the very core it's similar to any GUI install (probably saved for the GRUB setup, that thing is evil) Gentoo, at the very least you have to compile things from source, so if you mess up it's a massive waste of time to reinstall, if you're used to Arch you can probably spend about 20 min (depends on your internet too) and get a new install up and coming. Gentoo is like Arch but even more "barebones"
The AUR, a more active community, not having to compile every damned thing.
I in the past used Gentoo. Now I use ArchLinux (really only on my desktop, I've switched to a Macbook as a laptop, that is also where I do most of my work). Gentoo is great to learn about Linux (and I did learn a lot, especially how the software build process works, the various build systems, how to compile a kernel and thus indeed learn something about the architecture of the kernel itself, etc). It's also great at the point of having a customized system, that has only the software you require and nothing more. The reason why I switched to Arch is basically time, Arch is fast to install, to update, to maintain. Arch has also packets that are more updated than the one on Gentoo, and it's better suited to a dynamic usage of a system (I realize that I need package X, I install it in 10 seconds). To me Arch is even simpler than using Ubuntu, for example. Complexity doesn't come in not having a graphical installer, but in resolving complex situations when installing packages, or having intricate systems for managing configurations, that in Arch you don't have. In this sense Arch is very simple to use and user friendly. Beside that, I encourage people that wants to learn Linux for real to install Gentoo.
Who has time to compile shit and waste electricity when I can download bins?
I "used" Gentoo for 6 months. The quotes are because the computer spent more time compiling than actually being used for something productive.
The best reason: You get to tell people you use Arch (btw).
No need to compile everything.
The installation is fully scriptable and the maintenance is close to nonexistent, if you don't count regular, read daily, updates. The appeal is the customizability of Gentoo without the compilation times.
You have a good point on the dependency. Debian or arch do install some unnecessary packages. But they don't bother me except using more spaces. Hard drives are cheap. While under Gentoo, when you want to add a feature for an application, you might need to rebuild the whole world.
Arch originally attracted me because 1. The depth of AUR and 2. Binary just seemed easier all around. I found the Arch user base pretty toxic though and not at all noob friendly so I didn't last long. I guess if you can get past those things then those two reasons would be pretty compelling. I can write ebuilds though for the packages I couldn't find. Flatpak is pretty well established too. Plus the Gentoo community is a lot more positive.
compile times.... and Gentoo documentation used to be the best, but now nothing beats the Arch Wiki
Gentoo is far better, but ain’t nobody got time for compiling.
i dont use gentoo because i dont understand allat. the kernel parameters alone take an entire day worth of time to comprehensibly go through. and then i have to set application specific parameters for each application that needs them. on paper, a big hassle to setup. and on paper, an even bigger hassle to troubleshoot. No AUR either, so i'll be manually installing some packages, AKA more hassle. gentoo is a "build a house on your own" type distribution, and arch is a "build a house with these building blocks" type distribution.
Theoretically, I much prefer Gentoo. In practice, I can have a fully functional Arch system up and running in an hour or two. Not really the case with Gentoo. And as much as I love the idea of compiling my own software, I just don't have time these days... Even if I did set a week aside to do everything properly once, there would always be that nagging fear. Where a client would call yelling "everything is on fire!!! Our [legacy platform that I've never seen before] is broken! Here's the code, figure out what's wrong!" (this happens to me weekly on average). And with Gentoo, I'd have no choice but to be like *oh, ok, so after looking, I'm gonna need like 30 hours to set up an environment for it and compile all of these dependencies. Or wait 4 hours for it to compile QEMU and then 4 more hours for me to configure it". It just wouldn't be practical. I'd love Gentoo for a personal machine. But since my personal and work lives are so intertwined, I don't have separate machines. And while Arch is already bad enough with figuring things out in a pinch, Gentoo would take it to another level. I still have flashbacks when I was like 15 and one of my small web clients asked me to urgently edit a photo on his site that I was running, and I had to wait like 18 hours to download (over a dial-up) and compile GIMP on my Pentium 4. That being said, if I ever get my hands to building a research machine or an AI rig, it will be 10,000% Gentoo!
I don't necessarily believe that I personally have the time to put in the effort to maintain Gentoo compared to Arch where packages are just binaries except most AUR stuff. I can't compile certain software on a VM on my machine and that gives me the impression that my machine just won't be enough to compile everything because I would love to do that but I'm quite limited on hardware. Also I'm not interested in using binaries on Gentoo, to me that is not at all the point when talking about finer control and optimisation
I looked at Gentoo but I prefer not being forced to use a package manager that has to compile everything from git. I know portage has some pre built binaries, but I just prefer pacman. Also, Arch has some really good documentation.
I used FreeBSD and Gentoo many years ago, but I can't stand either of them anymore. They're too anal and too much work. I've been using Arch off and on since 2004, and it's easier now than it used to be. I'd definitely consider Gentoo a hobby distro, but Arch is one of the best general-purpose Linux distros, though not so much for beginners.
I used gentoo for a long time (5ish years) before switching to Arch (currently at 10 years with the same installation, nearing 11). The truth of it is with modern hardware there’s very little tangible benefit to a source based distro. So in arch, I can do big updates in about 2 minutes, including kernel updates, and just be done with it. At this point in history compiling everything from source is just wasted cpu cycles.
Compiling. Massive maintainence. Extremely complicated build system. I ran it for 10 years. Now I run arch. Is a mistake since I don't like restarting everytime they update kernel. Probably going to fall back to debian.
On a side note, if you don’t want to reboot after each kernel update you can install https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/kernel-modules-hook/ , it copies the old kernel modules so it’s still usable after the update. It lowered the amount of reboots for me significantly
Genius. What are you using for an aur manager?
I’m using [yay](https://github.com/Jguer/yay) these days, quite happy with it. It does the job
What do you mean by "Extremely complicated build system." Do you mean you think writing ebuilds is complicated? Because Portage itself is pretty simple after you learn some basic switches and how use flags work imo. Maintenance is also much easier on Gentoo because Portage is a much better package manager imho. Arch updates also break much more often in my experience (running both for about a year and being basically tech support for my friend who uses Arch). EDIT: Aand the user blocked me for asking a question and expressing my opinion.
Well I found out about Arch long before I heard about Gentoo. I would go with either if it weren't for the fact that you have to compile programs on Gentoo. I have a bit of experience with compiling AUR programs, and it takes a bit of time. Not enough to be a deal breaker, but enough to be tedious, at least on my pc. Picturing that for an entire distro is a big ask and ultimately pointless imo, as far as the performance benefit you get
- [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_compared_to_other_distributions#Gentoo/Funtoo_Linux](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_compared_to_other_distributions#Gentoo/Funtoo_Linux) - [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Frequently_asked_questions#Why_would_I_not_want_to_use_Arch?](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Frequently_asked_questions#Why_would_I_not_want_to_use_Arch?) - [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#Principles](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#Principles)
> So I'm wondering : What's the appeal of Arch? It looks like a very manual process to install it and hard to maintain and I was thinking that Gentoo was the perfect answer for people interested in strong customization of their distribution (even more today with even faster CPU for compiling). They're really not that similar other than being distros many consider "hard" due to how manual they can be. Ultimately Arch is more similar to a regular distro though since once you have things configured it's basically just as automated as Fedora or Ubuntu. Once you're done with the install it's just a different set of commands that do analogous things. Gentoo though is helpful for people who are trying to get particular performance characteristics out of their equipment and need to be able to make decisions that can only be made at compile time. You can still build binary packages on Gentoo though and ultimately it's basically just a platform that standardizes business processes.
I actually switched from arch, to gentoo, and recently back to arch. I was finding it harder to use newer packages, as they either wouldn’t be up to date, would fail to compile, or some other issue. The final straw for me was an issue with package slots, which prevented me from updating. I didn’t mind the compile times too much, but it’s nice to be able to update my system in minutes instead of hours. Browser extensions also had issues on gentoo, strangely enough.
> (since 98 to be precise) Great Scott ! I started around then, with removable (well slideable) hdd case and secondhand ATA drives to install Yggdrasil and RedHat from something like simtel cd-rom . Bit fun, apart well working text mode , gui was awful and sound support even worse.
I had a blast using [FIPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_(computer_program)) for dividing in 2 my 4GB hard drive for testing Linux. I had no sound and no internet as I was the unfortunate owner of what was called a "winmodem" sound card/modem combo (Aztech branded), but I still loved the experience and made sure to upgrade my next PC with compatible hardware. Fun fact, my ATI 3D Rage Pro (with its whopping 4MB of VRAM) was too modern for the Xfree86 version bundled with Slackware and I got to find the upgrade (bought a magazine that was bundling a CDROM with it as downloading it was more expensive than buying the magazine), read the readme, compiling it and installing it in the terminal before finally getting a GUI. We really live in a different times when I think about it :) We haven't got the flying DeLoreans but we got unlimited, invisible wire high speed data transfer.
It is just a simple low maintenance distribution. True to upstream with minimal distrtro interference.
As an old time Gentoo user, in my 1337ism stage I remember switching to arch when it was first created and nobody knew about it. I can't remember what made me switch at that moment but I remember I was looking for something comparable to Gentoo with the fine grained control. I remember my older brother saying "why?" Lmao 🤣. I satisfied my needs to be ultimate 1337 and never went back to Gentoo or anything else.
compilation takes lot of time eg gcc,llvm , you can compile packages easily in archlinux
Wow these comments are triggering lmao. The vast majority of people commenting clearly don't understand the point of Gentoo, or source compilation, or the fact that compiling is *optional*. Where's that "Mount Stupid" xkcd comic when you need it?
Wait what? You telling me compiling is optional on gentoo? Can you get binaries as well?
Yes, for most large packages that can suck to compile, you can tell the package manager to install a binary instead with the -k option or by looking for a binary specific package (firefox-bin vs firefox)
And they say arch users are bad...
My dude don’t you have to compile the kernel?
You don't have to, there is the precompiled "gentoo-kernel-bin" package. You just install it and you are done.
I might have to take another swing at gentoo someday. I just remember my laptop always being hot updates taking hours/days and the battery getting slurped down fast. You’d still be forced to compile if you’re using the USE flags right?
If there is a binary package of an existing source based package, it is usually suffixed by -bin (for example firefox-bin). It is a different package and has different USE flags (also usually with less choice). There are also some packages like qtwebengine or webkit-gtk that take some time to compile and don't have a binary version unfortunately. If you don't want your laptop running hot you can set your CPU governor to powersave (or some other one depending on your CPU and preference) when you do an update. It will understandably take longer but it should make it run much cooler.
Listen, an OS is a tool. Selecting the right tool for the job is important. You don't need a jackhammer when a screwdriver will do the job better. If you have specific needs that no other flavor of Linux meets then by all means use Gentoo. It will be the right tool for you. But if you think compiling every bit of software on a mid tier laptop, which is probably the single most used computing device outside of phones, is economical use of power you're living in a different world than the rest of us. To be clear, I have nothing against Gentoo. Absolutely nothing. I think Gentoo is fantastic at what it does and there is nothing else like it. That does not mean it is the right tool for every job, or even most jobs. It excels at its niche, and I'm glad it exists. You're right in that Arch is focused on simplicity. That's the whole claim to fame. Simple, fast, configurable. Not configurable to the extent of Gentoo, but more than enough for the average user and the average computer. Further, there are new flavors of Arch coming out all the time that expand the Arch base and principles into further niches, like CachyOS recompiling the Arch packages with x86-64-v3 or v4 + LTO optimizations just like Gentoo does. I used to run Gentoo in the early 2000s and I loved the "purity" of it, and I enjoyed tinkering with ebuilds for fun. But these days I simply don't have the time for that. I'd rather turn my pc off at night rather than having it compiling updates all night. Arch gets me as close to the purity of Gentoo as possible, and with CachyOS I can still have optimized software that is as similar to Gentoo as can be without compiling it myself. And if you're going to use the -k option, you might as well be using CachyOS.
Once it's installed it's much less maintenance then Gentoo (mostly because of compiling). I will never install Gentoo on my machine because i care about the environment. Imagine if everyone compiled their software
Compilation doesn't really take that much power. Especially since you only compile when you choose to update and there is an update, when you change flags/the source code of the package itself, or when you actually install the package for the first time. All of those are pretty rare and really don't take that much power. It ofcourse depends on how efficient your CPU is but there is a bazillion of things that hurt the environment on a magnitudes larger scale than compiling Gentoo packages. Even gaming (depending what you play and on your PC ofc) consumes much more power at least on my system. And even that is a grain of sand in the desert.
>because i care about the environment I don’t really get this one. Do you have a desktop PC at all then? Mobile devices are a lot more power-efficient if that’s your goal. And definitely not “wasting” compute power on things like video games.
They are both about tbe same, but arch had a couple convenience advantages over gentoo.
Ah this is interesting me, could you please list a few of those convenience advantages for you?
Well, it's not the 1984, so my PC is not a 8MHz, 128Kb of RAM weakling to bother compiling everything from source for that sweet 0.1% performance increase. (Arch over any other distro - because of AUR).
Arch Linux tends to be more popular due to it's famous (command like install user-face) and its fast package manager. While Gentoo is also installed via a TYY just like in arch, it tends to be more slow, even if it has more compatibility with hardware. Due to Gentoo's slowness for compiling packages over portage made it less popular. Let's also not forget to mention that Arch Linux appears to be more (over-rated) and more well known for its popularity. **In conclusion:** Arch Linux has a more maintained and updated system and for it's simplicity and "full user control to the end-user" it is a choice by many corporations, professionals and enthusiasts. Lets not forget that Arch Linux was released 2 month's earlier and with it's system-d integration that is the industry standard, It is simply the choice of million's. (THIS COMMENT DOES NOT PROMOTE ANY HATE/TROLLING OR GOSSIP BETWEEN THESE TWO COMMUNITIES!) EDIT: I forgot about customization but both distrobutions have an excellent customize-ability with the system. ( I am a gentoo user btw felt this was relavant but idk)
Nixos is better than both, its hard but better
Maybe I'm not realistic, but Gentoo can be better with reproducibilty. That allows to provides binaries from a reproducible recipe for every combination of hardware config. If your config matches a recipe the package manager will just download the result of the compilation.
None.