Gentoo for work

[rzdndr]

Hello

I am currently working as a consultant to do development work. I am using another distro. But my disto does not allow me to install different versions of the python package. My python version is 3.12 but the system that I am working on requires 3.9, hence I will be using 3.9 to avoid any headaches. I have used pyenv to get around this issue. But have read that gentoo does allow multiple versions of a package to be installed.

I was wondering if anybody is using gentoo for work? Or are you using it as a personal daily driver? (I would want to use the system as a daily driver for personal use and for work).

Would it be too much work keeping it up to date? (I will not be changing any USE flags and install packages with all the features enabled, and will have minimal changes if any).

Would updates cause problems (Would not want to have any disruptions to my work)?

I would like to have a stable system, that I update/upgrade on a weekly basis. The system should be my daily driver (personal use, personal projects, etc) and be able to use it for work as well.

Would gentoo be a good choice to use for this use case?

I thank you in advance for any information.

Kind Regards
Riza Dindir

[szatox]

[rzdndr]

[pietinger]

rzdndr,

first of all: Welcome to Gentoo Forums !

I am of the opinion that Gentoo can also be used in a corporate environment ... if Linux is already in use. I myself “got” Gentoo at work from a colleague. First I installed it on my test machine, then later on my production machine. Yes, I had the great advantage that my colleague already had very good knowledge of Gentoo (later I registered here in the forum).

But I would like to give a warning: Once you use Gentoo, there's no going back ... because you won't find the freedom and possibilities with Gentoo anywhere else ... it's a bit like here:

https://xkcd.com/456/



Maybe you would like to read this article?

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pietinger/New_at_Gentoo

[penguinomicon]

I've been using Gentoo as my daily driver for a few years. It sometimes has hiccups, but no more than any other distro or OS that I've tried over the years. I feel like Gentoo is currently the sweet spot when it comes to lightweight and flexible distros which are suitable for a daily driver. It wasn't always like this, eg 10 years ago I felt like Arch was the sweet spot, and five years ago I thought it was Void Linux. What I want from a daily driver is that it can run all the software I need to do my job (including not only popular browsers but also some proprietary software like zoom and slack), and it can handle all the customization I want to throw at it without getting unstable; for these reasons and more I consider Gentoo an excellent daily driver. Because it's a source-first distro, compiling anything you want when doing development is usually a breeze, because you automatically have all the build deps and development headers installed.

It's not hard to keep it up-to-date, so long as you update regularly. This is true of all rolling-release distros. The more you update a rolling release distro, the more stable it becomes. I usually do two system updates a week, one before starting work on Monday morning and one when I finish for the week on Friday afternoon. Lots of gentoo users upgrade less often and don't seem to have many problems so long as it's every week or so, but personally I just like to keep on top of it.

Because Gentoo's package management is highly sophisticated and can handle the sorts of things you're interested in, like multiple versions of the same package at the same time, the dependency graph can be complicated. So, sometimes an update is unable to immediately proceed for a particular package. It usually only affects one or two packages at a time, and after a week or so it will resolve itself. In the meantime, you just keep using the slightly older versions of the affected packages. If you get annoyed at seeing the same warnings during every update, you can dig deeper, but it's not usually necessary.

Note that although you can have multiple versions of Python installed, not all of them are supported. Every few months, a system update will come with a news item (`eselect news read`) about needing to upgrade to the next python version. It gives a few options for how to proceed, but the result is you generally only have a couple of versions of python on the system at the same time. I do see in `eix dev-lang/python` that 3.9 is still listed as available, although it's generally expected that people should be on 3.12 by now.

Some recommendations for someone using gentoo as a daily driver for the first time:

• Start using etckeeper as early as possible. It's good to be able to check what changes you made under /etc/portage at which time, and roll them back if necessary. I've now got nearly two years of commits (I didn't immediately start using etckeeper. In fact, realizing I needed to manage /etc/portage better is the reason I started using etckeeper.)
  
• Don't try too much customization for starters. Just stick to what's in the handbook. When you do start adding more USE flags and so on, do it incrementally, preferably after you already set up etckeeper.
  
• Don't expect to be able to build your new workstation in a day. If you're already fluent with Linux you can get most of a new gentoo system set up in a day, but there's always a bit more fiddling to do, and you need to give yourself time to figure it out when you're not already familiar with the distro. Some necessary packages like chromium just take a long time to compile, and then you're stuck twiddling your thumbs. So give yourself at least a few days when you have some time off. Also, what happens when you misconfigure something, and it seems to break everything, and you can't figure out how to get the system back into a good state? So also give yourself time to start over from scratch in case you get stuck. After a few months you'll feel more confident with gentoo, but be kind to yourself at the start.
  
• Some people might judge you if you're aren't compiling your own kernel and building your own initramfs, but I'm not one of them. Just go with a binary kernel for starters and if you still feel happy with gentoo after using it for a while you can make a decision later about whether to start compiling your own kernel. Personally, I like gentoo more for the customizability than the performance, so I'm still content with binary and don't feel any rush to load more stress and complexity on myself with tweaks that aren't that useful to me.
  

_________________
"For it was only a penguin - albeit of a huge, unknown species larger than the greatest of the known king penguins, and monstrous in its combined albinism and virtual eyelessness." — At the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft

[rzdndr]

[pietinger]

[lars_the_bear]

FWIW -- I'm glad I installed Gentoo on VMs before I made the jump to installing in a real machine that I use every day. Even after two months of daily use, I still feel that I'm a long, long way from being on top of it. And that's after nearly 30 years of Linux experience. Also, I expected more from Gentoo than it was able to provide. But I guess you only find that out by trying it.

If I need to use different, incompatible versions of Linux tools, I install them in different virtual machines. Since VMs can be cloned, the bulk of the set-up only has to be done once. I would rather do this, that to try to work out how to maintain multiple versions on Gentoo, even if it's possible.

I still don't use Gentoo for my commercial work -- not because I couldn't, but because none of my customers do.

BR, Lars.

[rzdndr]

[rzdndr]

[rzdndr]

[pingtoo]

rzdndr,

Welcome to Gentoo,

I think this use case is perfect for my point, Don't do frequent update.

You are a user of a computer, you are not a administrator that manage computer for other to use. So why update if the application do exactly what you need? Does update speed up the application usage? Does update fix a problem previous version that cannot address? These are the reason to perform update otherwise stay where you are use the system to perform work that reward your labour. Don't service the system just because it said update is available.

If you are thinking using basic XWindow is all you need than it is probably use Xfce is better than twm. twm is just too out dated to support modern daily usage. Xfce does not update very frequent and it is pretty stable for normal daily usage.

I like the idea of using virtualisation to support different use case. for example you said you need python3.9. upstream stop development on it. so why not encapsulate it with a VM or better a container so you don't need to worry any system update will disturb your on going work.

In my view, Gentoo is not the best for your use case. Think about use some kind of virtualisation is probably better for your use case.

If you are think what about security, I think you need to ask you self, what each update bring in from security point of view. because if you already have secured environment do you actually verify the secure update actually prevent a previous hole or could it introduce a new hole? for security you need to think your threat model, for example because the system will accept remote access therefor it is vulnerable to network attack or it is need to frequent download remote data and the remote data cannot always be trusted? again may be isolate the download process into a container and verify there first before take it in to working environment is better approch.

[rzdndr]

[pietinger]

[szatox]

[rzdndr]

[SiberianSniper]

As a professional software developer, I love working for a company that lets me use Gentoo on my company computer. It's the best distro for software development in my opinion, and having been a user for almost two decades, I've got it down to where it takes minimal effort to maintain.

That said, I think something like Lmod or GNU Environment Modules would be a better option for your case. Essentially, you can install multiple copies of your software with different versions, build options, or whatever other differences to different locations, then use the module command to set environment variables properly to use them. Both systems support module dependencies to simplify module loading. It's a little bit of work up front, but much less than a full OS installation, and once you've got a good system, it's really easy to expand.

[rzdndr]

[rzdndr]

[lars_the_bear]

[szatox]

[pingtoo]

[rzdndr]

[pingtoo]

[NeglectedRudderPug]

I use Gentoo for work and personal purposes myself. I started using Gentoo late last year as my daily driver - I didn't test or anything I just jumped right in and replaced my OpenSUSE with it. I do a lot of development and server admin work in general and I've been using Linux itself for around 20 years at this point, so I admit I am quite well versed in Linux. (But, getting old )

Installation and setup overall was easy and maintenance is a breeze. As of yet, it hasn't broken itself in a way that couldn't be quickly fixed, either. Important changes are provided as 'news' items directly on your system so, if breaking changes are in bound you're aware of them before you begin... unlike Arch, which seems to be intent to commit suicide during updates if you don't regularly check their website, as I found out the hard way.

You can also run multiple versions of python in 'slots', I do so myself and it works well.

In all honesty, I've come to really love Gentoo and the way it works, it finally feels like a distribution that 'fits' me.

So, if you want to go ahead and use it for work purposes, go ahead and give it a try.