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Old 03-22-2005, 03:11 AM   #16
Bruce Hill
HCL Maintainer
 
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: McCalla, AL, USA
Distribution: Arch, Gentoo
Posts: 6,940

Rep: Reputation: 129Reputation: 129

To use hdparm issue and read "man hdparm" and check out this
LQ thread - Hard drive performance for a possible HOW-TO
 
Old 03-22-2005, 07:54 AM   #17
Crashed_Again
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: Atlantic City, NJ
Distribution: Ubuntu & Arch
Posts: 3,503

Rep: Reputation: 57
Quote:
Originally posted by Chinaman
But none of them has yet to show me any tangible benefits to be gained by compiling my entire distribution from source, versus running Slackware and compiling apps from source with a custom kernel, all optimized for my hardware.
I don't understand this statement. You say you compile everything from source in Slackware but you don't understand why Gentoo compiles everything from source? So what your saying is, some apps should be compiled from source but others should not and Slackware knows which is which?

I agree that the Gentoo install can be extremly tedious compared to other distributions. Its just the nature of the beast. But my argument to that is, how many times do you have to install? This ain't Windows where you have to format once every month to get things running correctly again.

Its a trade off between time and packages. You have over 8000 packages at your fingertips ready to be installed with one simple 'emerge'.

Let me stop now because I'm turning into a Gentoo zealot which I should not.

In the end your distro of choice is your distro. Slackware is an excellent distro as well and if thats your bag then more power to you. I just hate the 'ricer' jab given by others who don't even understand Gentoo.
 
Old 03-22-2005, 07:58 AM   #18
Bruce Hill
HCL Maintainer
 
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: McCalla, AL, USA
Distribution: Arch, Gentoo
Posts: 6,940

Rep: Reputation: 129Reputation: 129
Vince,

I apologize. Please forgive me, I was wrong and will edit my post...
 
Old 03-22-2005, 08:04 AM   #19
Crashed_Again
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2002
Location: Atlantic City, NJ
Distribution: Ubuntu & Arch
Posts: 3,503

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Quote:
Originally posted by Chinaman
Vince,

I apologize. Please forgive me, I was wrong and will edit my post...
No need to aplogize. I just don't like people calling the distro I use a ricer. I still have the stock muffler on my Gentoo box.
 
Old 03-22-2005, 12:41 PM   #20
alagenchev
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2004
Location: USA
Distribution: Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu
Posts: 223

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 30

Last edited by alagenchev; 03-22-2005 at 02:01 PM.
 
Old 03-22-2005, 01:34 PM   #21
Hammett
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Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Barcelona, Catalunya
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 1,074

Rep: Reputation: 59
Quote:
Originally posted by Chinaman
Well, how about producing some tangible results of how
Gentoo runs software faster?

We all have opinions...how about some facts?
There are benchmarks on the net
 
Old 03-22-2005, 01:35 PM   #22
pokey
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: London, UK.
Distribution: Gentoo, (K)Ubuntu
Posts: 14

Rep: Reputation: 0
Hello there.

First of all I have to say that this is a biased opinion because I use Gentoo for my home desktop and server machines.
However, I have used Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse and several Debian based distributions.
I'm now running Gentoo only and I have never used Slackware on my home machines, so I can't give advantages/disadvantages over that distribution, all I do here is explain some good points of Gentoo.
Sorry but this is quite a long post, and I know I'm a zealot, but I hope it is helpful.

The points I would like to make about Gentoo is that It's not just about performance gains by compiling everything with your specific CFLAGS.
OK some people may argue about whether this actually increases performance or not, personally I think it does because a lot of distributions use generic optimisations -march=i686 or something, where as I compile packages on my Athlon with -march=athlon-xp .
Choose for yourself if this makes a difference, I'm not here to argue about that, neither have I hard facts or proof about whether it is true. It is just my opinion.

You do not have to compile everything when you install Gentoo, if you are comfortable building a kernel, then I think you will have no trouble, this is the only thing that needs to be compiled when installing, although you can compile everything if you wish.
The Gentoo Reference Platform (GRP) has already compiled packages that you can emerge that are built for your specific CPU, you can install the Gentoo base system, KDE, GNOME, Xorg and lots of other software from these binary packages to save time, these packages are only for installation though, and their USE flags are preset.
An option which I haven't checked out is
http://chinstrap.alternating.net/ which provides current binaries to save you compiling updates.
Maybe I should say that I run Gentoo on a 150MHz Pentium and I compile everything, this machine is always on and I set portage to compile at nice 10 and I hardly notice it when I'm updating and logged in through ssh.

By far I think where Gentoo shines the most is the USE flags, maintaining updates with dispatch-conf and when you want to mix stable, testing, and unstable software.
Suppose you never want packages with GNOME support built in, you could put USE="-gnome" in /etc/make.conf and no packages will be built with that extra baggage.
If you want a specific package with GNOME support, you could do that too while still keeping your general policy of no GNOME, this is a really a bad example but I hope you get the idea.
When you want keep your stable system but you want to check out the latest GNOME releases (beta) it is simple to just unmask GNOME without having to install a ton of other unstable software just to get it.
It Is also very easy to create your own ebuilds for portage and the Gentoo community and forums are very friendly and helpful if you get stuck.

Here are some Gentoo related links.

USE flags
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...ok_part2_chap2
Mixing Software Branches
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...ok_part3_chap3
Additional Portage Tools (dispatch-conf)
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...ok_part3_chap4
The only way you can find out if you will like it is give it a spin, everyone has different ideas about distributions. Me - I like Gentoo

Take care and best regards
 
Old 03-22-2005, 02:13 PM   #23
Crashed_Again
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Registered: Dec 2002
Location: Atlantic City, NJ
Distribution: Ubuntu & Arch
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Rep: Reputation: 57
Plus, if your extremly rad like myself you use distcc on three machines on your lan to make compiling a breeze.
 
Old 03-22-2005, 03:04 PM   #24
alagenchev
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2004
Location: USA
Distribution: Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu
Posts: 223

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Thanks pokey, great reply.
 
Old 03-23-2005, 12:53 AM   #25
jkt
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: New Zealand , down here at the bottom of the world...
Distribution: Mandrake 9.1
Posts: 35

Rep: Reputation: 15
I have recently switched from Slackware to gentoo, And I don't regret it.

I did like slackware a lot - but I found Gentoo's Package manager, Portage, far superior.

But, Scince I'm pretty new to linux myself, I can't really give a full rundown.

Gentoo takes a bit to learn - But support on irc is easily come by.
 
Old 03-23-2005, 06:07 AM   #26
slackie1000
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2003
Location: Brasil
Distribution: Arch
Posts: 1,037

Rep: Reputation: 46
hi there,

using both - slack and gentoo - for some time, i think i will drop my
imho, the main point of the discussion is not package management. in average, both users - gentoo and slackware users - can live without that.
the point is performance and customization. like pointed already, if you know something about make files and compilation process then there is nothing like gentoo. you can make your box scream with some USE flags and take the best of each software according to your needs. of course the comfortability of portage make it easier but i don't think it is a main point.
the conclusion is if you don't need or don't know how to setup your make.conf the difference is not performance : is just package management.

as always, this is just my

regards

slackie1000
 
Old 03-23-2005, 07:36 AM   #27
vharishankar
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 3,178
Blog Entries: 4

Rep: Reputation: 138Reputation: 138
Having recently installed Gentoo, I must say that it takes some time - not to install it - but to understand the idea and the nature of the distribution.

I had to read the manual thrice to understand the steps given. Blindly following the handbook will lead to grief. I was successful the first time because I read it thrice and I had my frustrations in understanding all those instructions.

But according to the Gentoo philosophy -- that's the whole point of Gentoo. To build your own Linux system as you wish to without having a huge number of binaries cluttering your system. If you don't have the time, then don't go for Gentoo. Try Slackware or Debian instead.

Gentoo is for the Linux enthusiast who wishes to learn something while doing it. It's tedious yes, but that's part of what is Gentoo. It's like a "build-your-own-distro" with an easier learning curve than a project like LFS for example.

Having a regular installer for Gentoo would make it "just another Linux distro". I think there are plenty of "normal" Linux distros already so the choice is there for those who need them. I think the Linux enthusiasts also need an option and that option is Gentoo.
 
  


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