Binary packages for stable users [long]

miqorz · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:48 am Post subject:

I've read your posts. And I'll echo it once more.

Use debian. It's as simple as that.

Gentoo is a soruce distro - That's one of the reasons MANY of use it.

In fact - It's the ONLY reason I use it.

goulash · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:01 am Post subject:

sounds pretty selfish that your asking someone else to do your compiling for you...

galay2 · Apprentice Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 208

Why is it that when theres improvements to gentoo that can make many users happy, while (key point) at the same time it does not do any harm in any possible way to old users, the idea still gets rejected? I'm confused.

(I've read the thread, but perhaps I've missed something)

miqorz · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:49 am Post subject:

This is yet another case of a pepsi drinker going over to the coke factory complaining it's not more like Pepsi. :roll:

Loke · Apprentice Joined: 25 May 2002 Posts: 274 Location: Norway

galay2: exactly, Im confused too. Just to prove it, I just installed Gentoo on my laptop using

http://chinstrap.alternating.net/

and so far its working beyond my expectations. I set my CFLAGS and USE flags to the same as theyre using in chinstrap, and I had a full working KDE3.3 desktop in under 2 hours on a P3 800MHz.

"So why not just STFU and continue using chinstrap then?" To quote Kurt:

boskone · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 4

Just out of curiosity, has anyone done any performance studies on some fairly generic compiled binary versus source? I mean, the reason quite a few of us use Gentoo on some boxes and Debian or whatever on others is because we don't need the same kind of edge for our server, email box, or kids' box that we do for our primary/gaming box. If the difference is 5%, but you still get the _other_ advantages of Gentoo (I still think it's easier to setup and maintain than other distros), then we could see a lot of people who don't have the need/want/patience for compiling everything move over.

Maybe introduce support for Debian or Ubuntu repositories into portage? They seem to work well enough that people use them often; Ubuntu's been getting quite a bit of good press on Ars Technica recently.

Building from source isn't the _only_ advantage of Gentoo; the up-to-date repositories (usually), the relatively quick responses to problems, etc, are also factors, and to many people as or more important than any cachet attached to compiling everything.

galay2 · Apprentice Joined: 02 Feb 2004 Posts: 208

Very well said boskone and Loke. Which comes to the conclusion that why cant the gentoo people allow users to have a more flexible way to enjoy and benefit from this distro. Sometimes people actually only want a subset of what you provide, why force everything down the throat? Didnt we learn anything from microsoft? :roll:

khud · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject:

I'm more inclined towards the ubuntu/debian repositories idea. I think it's great, i thought about it once too. Although it would imply having the dependencies installed, so i don't know how that could be solved. I mean, you _do_ have the dependency, but through emerge, and apt-get doesn't know. Maybe a unified database or xml file? I don't know...it would be hard work... Anyway, the idea is that gentoo supports binary packages for those who want it, not for everyone forced to... so I see this pretty simple:
-Binary packages only have one CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS = i686.
- Binary packages have only one use flags which would be a default, anything other than that, then serve yourself the source.

What's so difficult in that? It could even be as simple as providing the GRP packages to the public, not in an iso, for users to download those they want everytime gentoo makes a release.
_________________
Antes morir de pie que vivir de rodillas.

Loke · Apprentice Joined: 25 May 2002 Posts: 274 Location: Norway

Ive been using the Chinstrap binaries on one of my laptops for a few weeks now, and I cant compliment enough on how well it works so far. The only thing I can really complain about, is that the chinstrap repository isnt always up-to-date on every ebuild - but the major ones (the ones who are timeconsuming to compile) are usually in sync.

The installation was simple, I just used a stage3 tarball and set my CFLAGS and USE flags to the same as the GRP release. The Chinstrap project use the same CFLAGS and USE flags as the GRP reference set btw:

mastabog · n00b Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 59

KingPunk

Shadow Skill · Veteran Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 1023

I recenctly got Gentoo installed on my adm64 machine. I decided to try Gentoo because of the good things I had heard about portage from other Linux users, the idea of having an infastructure to handle source code compilation really intrigues me, and because of this infastructure [portage] dep hell can be at the least greatly reduced.

However a six hour compile time for KDE when you are not optimizing it is totally unacceptable really. Right now I am emerging Amarok but since it is tied to KDE I have to emerge kdebase and kde libs at the very least, its about half way through the entire emerge process after about an hour. I want to listen to music using Amarok today not tomorrow, Gentoo conceptually is a great idea but in order for it to become what it could be the CLI eliete need to stop spreading FUD about binary package systems. Yes I think RPM sucks but that does not mean that we should not have a system by which binary and souce installs are supported without the dep hell. The arguments against allowing people to choose to install binaries really fall apart when you realize that:

1. Nothing will ever stop you from removing the binary and recompiling the program optimized to your preference.
2. In reality the optimization may or may not provide any readily apparent performance gain over a binary.
3. You may not want to optimize every single package and instead you want to use a package and worry about making it lean and mean later [say after having to reinstall because you #### your machine. It's a good thing I learned to make /home seperate from the rest of the system.

]

With that said I think that the makers of Gentoo and Portage as well as the guys who made the xfce bin installers have the right idea about package management for Linux, I think the ultimate most perfect system would in fact be a combination of portage [with binary repos at the ready for the major arch types.] and a sort of gui-wrapper for when you do ./configure manually on the comannd line or even just double clicking the configure script. If we do that I think we can open up the whole thing to the not so computer inclined, which means we will probably get more working ati/nvidia drivers and more hardware support in general, which at the end of the day is only going to make our enjoyment of Gentoo or any other distro that much better.
_________________
Ware wa mutekinari.
Wa ga kage waza ni kanau mono nashi.
Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.

"First there was nothing, so the lord gave us light. There was still nothing, but at least you could see it."

aquahawk · n00b Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 6