FASTEST Distro - Slackware or Gentoo
 

I am pretty impressed with the speed of Slackware (and even more so Slamd64).

I have been unsucessful getting Gentoo up and running in the past.

Is Slackware just as fast as Gentoo?
Is it worth the time to get Gentoo running? Or should I stick with Slamd64?

Do we really need another one of these threads?

edit: Try them, try them all. See what you like, in terms of OS, speed, stability, community, updates, etc...

That why I was asking ... I have spent a number of hours with Gentoo unsuccessfully. Is it worth pursuing purely on the basis of speed/performance? Or is it pretty close to Slack/Slamd?

IE - I can't try Gentoo without putting in more hours :(

they are about the same in my opinion, I've used them both for years. Personally, if I chose gentoo it would be more for portage than speed gains. It all depends on what you want from a distro and what suits your needs the most.

What is fast ???;
- fast to boot
- fast to load programs
- fast to swap/page
- fast to schedule
- fast for games
- fast for ...

Stick with Slack - if you can't justify in your own mind the effort to get Gentoo working, it probably ain't worth the effort for you.
Some of us want/need to wring the most out of the hardware - the vast majority don't.

The only criteria for me would be the speed/performance ...
So to define fast ...

Fast to open applications
Fast to open files
Fast to open up and render web pages
Fast to click though a file browser

As I said, stick with Slack. There are some tweaks available in 2.6 that should help should you decide to try them.
Then, of course, there are the (optional/unofficial) kernel patch sets - good luck if you try them ... :D

Thanks syg00.

Now I am curious :)

What are the 2.6 tweaks?
What are the kernel patch sets?

I know that slack 10.1 has the optional 2.6 kernel - but it sounds like you are referring to something different? :) hmmm

The swappiness change was probably the most notorious - even the kernel devs couldn't agree about it.
Just do a search for swappiness here on LQ for some background.

For a well-known kernel patch, have a look here- also mentions some more of the vm tweaks.
Gotta be good, it's from an Aussie :D
(looks like the link to nitro is broken - try the Gentoo forums "Unsupported Software" for nitro; and love; and ...)

I find my gentoo system very speedy, but the main advantage is by far the portage! I've used slackware to and you should be able to make it just as fast as gentoo. what problems do you have installing gentoo?

I got to the point where I was stuck at the grub prompt. It was a very sexy looking distro up until that point however :) I eventually worked out how to get past the grub prompt and boot up my kernel, but then the kernel load failed. At that point, I abandoned temporarily. I will try Gentoo again in the next few weeks once I have some more time.

if you're using the gentoo install cd you shouldn't have to do anything at the grub screen. did you set up your grub.conf and reinstall grub before rebooting? what options did you use when you compiled your kernel?

I think that was the problem ... ie .. that I had a grub prompt and didnt boot straight up. I recall checking the grub.conf a number of times against all the gentoo documentation and working through the problem for a number of hours but couldn't solve it :( I can't recall the precise kernel options. I tried to start-out using the packaged kernel but I failed, then tried to build one - obviously I messed something up.

Will try again in a couple of weeks - but Slamd64 is looking like the distro to stick with at this point.

well the best part of gentoo is portage if all you want is speed and gentoo gives you to many problems in the install slack can be just as fast. if you want to install gentoo in the future and you have problems send me an email.

OK. Thanks for the offer steve. I will try one last time in the next few weeks. Otherwise I am a slack/slamd user :)