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dh003i
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Joined: 03 Sep 2007
Posts: 70
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 Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:56 am Post subject: Gentoo/Portage, FreeBSD/Ports - Comparison & Contrast? |
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I plan on eventually making a home server for storing my pictures, mp3 files, video files, and documents on, which would provide the files to several laptops, as well as perform data-backup. I would also plan on accessing that data remotely. For some background, see this Google Groups thread.
I've been doing some research into FreeBSD and ports vs. Gentoo and portage, but have really just been getting a lot of contradictory information...here's some questions I'm interested in:
- Ports vs. portage -- for which one is it easier to initially compile, and update-compile your software?
- Ports vs. portage -- for which one is it easier to specify custom settings for the compilations & things left out?
- Is ports better at dependency-management? Does it figure out any possible dependency problems ahead-of time? What about for dependency removal?
- Does portage handle large upgrades better?
- For my purposes, is the stability difference between the two relevant?
- Likewise, are any security differences (potential for security) of relevance to my needs?
[*[Performance differences?
Thanks for any responses.
PS: This marks my return to Gentoo-land after a long hiatus; I'd installed Gentoo successfully on my laptop, and used it for about a year. But I couldn't get X.org working with my 32MB ATI Radeon Mobility graphics card, despite reading numerous forums on it and trying all suggestions. Fortunately, a home-server I think will be much less of a headache to setup, as no X.[/list] |
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anello
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 557
Location: EU -> DE -> Stuttgart
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 6:35 am Post subject: |
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Give both a try and find out for yourself! That's the only advice I can give you!
If you want a stable type of system that you don't want/need to change that often -> go with FreeBSD
If you want a nice tweakable system with the latest gimmick -> go with Gentoo
I'd recommend FreeBSD, but Gentoo is really nice as a home server as well!
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Antonino Catinello | http://catinello.eu |
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sschlueter
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Joined: 26 Jul 2002
Posts: 578
Location: Dortmund, Germany
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 6:42 am Post subject: |
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| If you try, use portmanager to manage your installed ports. It offers more advanced features than portinstall/portupgrade. |
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dh003i
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Joined: 03 Sep 2007
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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| anello wrote: | Give both a try and find out for yourself! That's the only advice I can give you!
If you want a stable type of system that you don't want/need to change that often -> go with FreeBSD
If you want a nice tweakable system with the latest gimmick -> go with Gentoo
I'd recommend FreeBSD, but Gentoo is really nice as a home server as well! |
Thanks for the response, anello and sschlueter.
One thing that did occur to me is it might be cool to set up a very small *nix install on my laptop, then run Xserver on the server, and use Xclient to display it on the laptop remotely, so all of the *nix programs could be on the server.
For this, would Gentoo be better than BSD? I've heard that X support and graphics card support on BSD is a little bit iffy. |
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enderandrew
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Joined: 25 Oct 2005
Posts: 731
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:15 am Post subject: |
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I keep meaning to consider a BSD flavor, but can't decide which one. I could try the Gentoo/BSD project, which I might do. However every time I look for comparisons and benchmarks on BSD/Linux, I rarely find anything objective, and what one site says or lists in their benchmarks will completely contradict what the next one will say.
Most of the reviews I've seen from Linux sites however say all the BSDs install fast, and feel pretty fast as a Desktop OS. I'm pretty happy with Linux right now, but might test-drive BSD for my new webserver I plan on building.
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Nihilism makes me smile. |
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sschlueter
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Joined: 26 Jul 2002
Posts: 578
Location: Dortmund, Germany
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:55 am Post subject: |
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| dh003i wrote: | One thing that did occur to me is it might be cool to set up a very small *nix install on my laptop, then run Xserver on the server, and use Xclient to display it on the laptop remotely, so all of the *nix programs could be on the server.
For this, would Gentoo be better than BSD? I've heard that X support and graphics card support on BSD is a little bit iffy. |
I think xorg's built-in drivers are more or less the same for Linux and FreeBSD.
I've read somewhere that Nvidia's closed source driver for FreeBSD is not on a par with the Linux one.
But if you only use X11 forwarding, then it doesn't matter anyway. |
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aidanjt
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Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 1118
Location: Rep. of Ireland
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:54 am Post subject: Re: Gentoo/Portage, FreeBSD/Ports - Comparison & Contras |
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| dh003i wrote: | <snip>
- Ports vs. portage -- for which one is it easier to initially compile, and update-compile your software?
Portage - two commands max, and install/updates are done, with your prior configuration settings
- Ports vs. portage -- for which one is it easier to specify custom settings for the compilations & things left out?
Portage, useflags
- Is ports better at dependency-management? Does it figure out any possible dependency problems ahead-of time? What about for dependency removal?
Both the same, ports has no reverse dependency cleaning afaik
- Does portage handle large upgrades better?
Not for the base system, unfortunately sometimes base gets cracked by major changes, else they're both on level playing fields
- For my purposes, is the stability difference between the two relevant?
Sorta, *BSD is a more stable base for most of the part
- Likewise, are any security differences (potential for security) of relevance to my needs?
About the same as far as the PMs goes.
- Performance differences?
Ports is a bit faster, since it's a simpler system.
<snip> |
Hope that helps somewhat. But you'll have to see for yourself by experimenting really.
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