Hi everyone,
it's time to format my desktop computer. I have to decide which Linux distribution to install. The same distribution would then install it on my laptop (XP's 15 9560). At the moment on my desktop computer there is arch and on laptop there is ubuntu. I would obviously change. The main features that must distinguish the distribution are:
- rolling release for not having to upgrade the version as it happens for ubuntu.
- Stable
- Versatile
- Flexible
- Customizable
With the computer I have to write code for exams at university or for work.
In the search for the perfect distribution has caught my attention sabayon that I like in many aspect that are customization, control on the operating system, rolling release the ability to compile the software and the ability to have multiple versions of the same package thanks to the slots, for now I'm trying on virtualbox and it also seems stable. These are the positive aspects and many derive from Gentoo being based on that. The only downside in my opinion, are the long update times if you install too many packages from the repo of Gentoo. In Ubuntu, however, I like stability and the fact that almost everything works well from the beginning. Unfortunately it is not very flexible to keep multiple versions of the same package which is very important to me. With ubuntu you have to do more work. I also discovered Slackware, I understand that it is stable, it is a rolling release if you use the current release, it is source based, it has fewer packages than Gentoo in its repo. I did not understand the substantial differences between slack and Gentoo. I hope you can help me make this important decision. I apologize for the very long message and thanks in advance.

Well, one difference is that Gentoo has portage which handles dependencies(usually). Gentoo also as you have already mentioned and seem to already know handles multiple versions of some packages(slots). Either way, you are compiling from source(of course there are binary packages for such things like firefox, etc... available in Gentoo). I like both, but I gravitate towards Gentoo. Less work in my opinion after the usually long install process. Once Gentoo is installed though and if you update regularly(as I do running stable) then compiling is really a non-issue and goes quickly(except perhaps webkit-gtk etc..). All of my Gentoo installs have been very low maintenance and are stable IMO. But, despite your choice, I believe you can accomplish your goal with either distro(I have a hard time referring to Gentoo as a distro, it's portage and then the packages come from upstream). Either way, both 'distros' are great.

Best Regards

You want a rolling release and you want stability? That sounds like a contradiction to me.

Slackware is binary, not source-based. However there is a community repo of additional source-based packages (slackbuilds). It has the reputation of being rock stable, but that doesn't necessarily extend to Slackware current.

Gentoo's mantra is choice. It's the only distro I know that lets you specify which version of a package you want, and you build locally with your own use flags. Gentoo also patches like crazy; there are new versions of software available almost daily. Slackware doesn't patch at all; they prefer to use vanilla packages.

You might also like to consider Debian. It comes in three flavours: stable, testing and unstable. Unstable is a true rolling release; testing is more or less a rolling release but they freeze it for a few weeks every two years before it becomes the new stable branch. After that a slew of updates comes through at once. I've used testing and it's fairly stable; I never had anything that was seriously broken.

As Hazel says, you can have rolling release and you can have stable, but you can't have both. If this is going to be something you use for your work, then it's stability you need. Personally, I'd say you also want something that doesn't require a lot of work (i.e. not Slackware or Gentoo); as Linus Torvalds once said, you don't want to spend time compiling or configuring things when you should be working.

Debian stable only needs replacing every 3 years; Slackware (available with user-friendliness and more ready-to-run software as Salix) lasts for 5 years; CentOS lasts for 10! I don't know about Debian, but one can update from one version of Salix or CentOS to the next without re-installing.

You can do that in Debian too. In fact it's their preferred update method. There's a specific apt-get internal command (dist-upgrade) which lets you do it safely.

so you advise me debian but from what I know debian is not as flexible as other distros, however, rather than gentoo I would opt for sabayon because it is a binary and stable distribution for what I read around as well as having a very simple installation. Can multiple versions of the same package easily coexist in debian? in the past I had to compile using the Boost library the problem was that I had a version too updated compared to what we used on the server. I could not fix it and I had to install the version of Ubuntu we had on the server to be able to compile with the correct boost version.

No. If that's a necessity for you, then Debian won't do. But you might like to take a look at Bedrock Linux. This is a kind of meta-distro which gives you alternatives from multiple distros.

bedrock seems a very promising project to be applied especially if you have to work with people who use different distributions. Unfortunately it is still in beta. I'll try it anyway in a virtual machine as I'm doing with sabayon when I'll be back home in the next few days. It seems even more complicated than gentoo to work on it. the fact of being able to install multiple versions of the same package or to be able to install only a certain version is quite interesting for me because it gives me the possibility to have software compatible with other developers and to be able to adapt quickly depending on what I have to do .

Do not use sabayon, funtoo. Those users just spammed in the past the forums.gentoo.org. it's less stable as gentoo from an user perspective who was active for several years on forums.gentoo.org

Also from an outsider. Those distros (funtoo and sabayon) do not offer much support. I saw them quite frequently on forums.gentoo.org in disguise.

I also saw that sabayon and funtoo does not encourage users to learn about linux. in regards i know arch linux, slackware and gentoo enforces users to learn about their systems


I checked out recently different distros. One criteria is the support forum. When I saw lots of unanswered newbie topics, or less action it indicates it is not much used.

The openrc based arch linux distro, which is kinda fresh, could not answer quite simple questions about the bootloader, distro behaviour and such. when the forum moderator do not even know if the bootloader overwrites without asking the grub.cfg it says all.



Also I saw that those sabayon users had no glue about anything. And they think they could spam the gentoo forum because it is gentoo. no it'S not. I looked into sabayon, funtoo. It is completly different stuff. These were loosely based on gentoo. So they get the gentoo ribbon, hey we are based on gentoo. Best example, look at the installation guide and forums / wiki of those.

I assume you talk about slackware and gentoo.

Slackware installer is less flexible. I tried it recently. The config files are also much different in my point of view.

Slackware just gives you as in the old days with SUSE and such. Big command line interface where you can say, take this big junk and you get that.

Slackware has a fast installer. Wireless lan is not setup out of the box and needs tweaking. The desktop environments which are shipped with recently downloaded ISOs are for the windows 10 audience. When you want a windows 95 like desktop with icons, background and start menu you may consider slackware.

GEntoo is flexible. If Slackware is I am not quite sure about that.

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When you want to code and you want a toolchain. Use gentoo.

You said flexible. Gentoo is the most flexible stuff I know about because of use-flags and the possibility to only install the stuff you really need. Most binary distro will give you stuff you do not need. From a security standpoint any additional installed package is a risk.
From my standpoint, any additional package I wasted compile time and I waste disk space. I also waste time for backups as additional space needs to be backuped.

You may look into arch linux, and the openrc only arch linux called atrix or so.

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What I dislike about binary distros is the following.

You get a fully running operating system which is not tweaked in regards of config files.

Gentoo tells you the following. there are config files which needs to be updated. use etc-update (or etc-upgrade what the tool is called) .

So basically portage forces me to deal with every config files. I read the predefined one, I read the manpage and sometimes some stuff on the net.

But the thing is, no autologin, no remote login.

no stupid services started

lots of temporary files are stored in tmpfs in my 20GiB RAM.

A story from the past. I used SUSE 6.2. In my school we also had SUSE 6.2 just a binary distro was installed.
I used the default way around to break into and had root access. With that I could do anything at the end. Of course they pretended to set those boxes up in a way that no one could do anything. I went to the admin guy and told him so. I doubt he fixed it. Was something I found in the manual and docs on my SUSE installation.

Well now when I consider. Windows is the same as android or those binary distros. lots of preconfigured stuff with lots of holes in the cheese

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As a long term gentoo user, 12-13 years, I fix most of my issues myself.
I know how my custom initramfs works, where the config files are, how the X server works.

I made a choice to ignore SYSTEMD completely. From my point of view an init has no right to rule over everything.

I'm a bit lazy so I use openrc + eudev. The static init approach may be the next step to a more pure linux

Building a kernel is also fun. tweaking stuff.

Gentoo has some hidden guides on how to speed up compile times and other improvements. The gentoo installation is just the first step in a long way to tweak a box.

Gentoo does not touch /etc at all. Gentoo does not overwrites, aka nukes, important config files as e.g. linux mint does. Except for dhcpcd which was developed by a gentoo guy and has a flaw in regards of the FHS / spec to not touch certain config files. I had to set special file permissions so the stupid deamon would not touch that config file (flag immutable)

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past few years were bad for gnu linux. Automounters and networkmanagers and SYSTEMD became popular. automation is nice when it works but when it fails it fails badly

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Let's assume you update 2-4 times a week. Let's assume you do update while working or using your computer you will not see it at all.
My hardware is kinda dated and a dinosaur. Asus g75vw, i7-3610qm is quite a slow cpu.

The usual behaviour should be bootup your box, sync, and start building packages while you do your stuff.


Long compile times would apply to e.g. penryn cpus = asus g70sg = t9500 => 12-13 hours for libreoffice
asus g75vw ~ 60-80 minutes depending on RAM speeds, loads and such.
Libreoffice is the benchmark package for myself. And you could grab the binary version also when you want to.

I think compile times are becoming not important anymore with now having 16 threads cpus

Most stupid statement I have ever read: spend time configuring things when you should be working.

All those internet of things and binary distros.

Default values which can be seen in a test installation, source code, ...

no one configures those. open door for anyone

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I really wonder why those premade config files from gentoo are such worse. I suppose these are the sample config files which are shipped from the source code.

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In a company usually someone is paid to remove all those open doors.

Go Void! I did.
Slackware was rather disappointing for me.

I second Void!!! my favorite so far.