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VinzC
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 Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: Gentoo's the best distribution around ;-) |
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Hi.
Bear the comments of a Gentoo enthusiast  .
I've been messing around from time to time with a couple of distributions for a moment already. I must admit I always miss something. Everytime I tried another distribution I had to turn back to Gentoo. Oh, I hear you: "again one of these 'I love/I hate'" opinions; maybe... But take your time to read .
I always read Gentoo's force was the USE flags and I always accepted that fact without further thinking. I've also tried to make an opinion of how other distributions were and this is the first time I ever took time to investigate a little more; Debian was one of my choices for a better understanding of the other way. Before I had played around with Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Foresight Linux, Mandriva, OpenSuse, Ubuntu and Mepis. But it was nothing more than just playing around. Now I've had to setup a Gentoo server machine with OpenVZ and Debian VE's I've realized what Gentoo's force truely is.
In fact Gentoo USE flags not only allow you to *choose* which dependency you'll compile but also to *see* what the package can do. Without any USE flag you'll never see at once postfix can be linked against cdb, ldap or mysql, that emacs has support for Kerberos or sasl... These are just examples. Binary distributions don't give you that level of granularity nor do they allow to instantly see what's required for a package or what functionnality a given package supports.
In my slightly deeper experience with Debian (which was close to null as far as administrating a Debian worstation was concerned), I've realized that it was far than obvious to get the same level of information from dpkg/aptitude. Even the logic of package handlers seemed less consistent to me than Gentoo's...
In Gentoo, emerge installs or removes a package while equery returns information about packages. Neat and simple. Installing or removing packages is done in Debian with apt-get install or apt-get remove plus apt-get purge (for cleaning config files). There is also a variant (Ubuntu, I think) apt-get autoremove, still a little confusing to me.
If you want to know/query the content of a package, equery f; in Debian it's dpkg -L -- see the difference between dpkg -l and dpkg -L? To find what package a file belongs to, compare Gentoo's equery b and Debian's dpkg -S. Most of all there are situations where you must filter dpkg results for installed packages for it sometimes returns installed packages or all packages in the repository, depending on the parameter (-L or -S, I don't remember exactly).
Far from me to criticize Debian's package handling, I find Gentoo's more intuitive and consistent: install or remove? say "emerge"; search? say "equery". I haven't used other distributions' package managers as much as Debian's however so I can't say I've got a fairly accurate opinion. Also I've been living with Gentoo for more than 4 years while I've started to investigate Debian for about 4 weeks...
And I'm not talking about real goodies like dispatch-conf or etc-update... Also, I can't seem to be that confident with dpkg-reconfigure for I don't really know what this thing is doing -- yes, I've come to a point I distrust wizards! Maybe the do-it-by-hand side of Gentoo has contaminated me too much; who knows...
Note I'm not comparing Gentoo and Debian. I'm just talking about Debian because it's the only one I've digged deeper than others. I'm talking here about why Gentoo is greater than other distributions in general -- from the little experience I had with others, I agree. But I've taken time to adjust my opinion and the USE flags thing doesn't require much explanation to agree it's true.
Gentoo maintainers, contributors and developers must sometimes spend quite a lot of time to make such a Good come true. They're investing their time in making Gentoo that great and that's why they deserve much of our attention, greetings, thanks and encouragements (hope this is the appropriate word for "encouragements" in french).
And to those of you who have a grin against Gentoo: please take your time to savour the taste of this excellent distribution. Your computer will thank you for using it at it's full potential while you'll realize no other distribution gives you the control you deserve and that Gentoo offers on a golden plate. Gentoo is like Wine: it gets better with time but it's up to you to feel the difference.
Great work, guys!
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Kollin
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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You are absolutely right 
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spindle
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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VinzC, thanks for posting this. This was a good read. I hadn't come to appreciate before that USE flags show you right away what the major dependencies are and that you can compile against different dependencies if you want or that some things are optional at compile time, like sound in blender (openal use flag).
| Quote: | And to those of you who have a grin against Gentoo: please take your time to savour the taste of this excellent distribution. Your computer will thank you for using it at it's full power while you'll realize no other distribution gives you the control you deserve and that Gentoo offers on a golden plate. Gentoo is like Wine: it gets better with time but it's up to you to feel the difference.
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I agree, Gentoo does get better with time. The visibility into the install process and the requirement to think about what you are doing allows you to make the system work more and more elegantly over time. And even better you come to understand how it works. Other distros may have very elegant package managers once you understand them but they seem to try to hide a lot of what is happening from the users in order to make it "easy" so a lot of users get into rpm hell or what have you with no clue as to what's going on and a really difficult process for figuring it out because a lot of info is not easy to find. So most people never really understand it -- I know I tried. While in portage the elegance of the system is very apparent because it shows you what is happening very clearly and it many times requires you to make some decisions about your system up front rather than just guessing or dictating what it should be or whatnot. And it even allows you to change any of those decisions later. The Gentoo maintainers are doing a great job on this in my book.
| Quote: | | ... yes, I've come to a point I distrust wizards! |
I so know what you mean!
p.s.,
| Quote: | | ... thanks and encouragements (hope this is the appropriate word for "encouragements" in french). |
That's the correct word, although it's oftentimes singular in this usage but that's pretty nitpicky. |
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MalleRIM
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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Gentoo is for sure a great distribution. But talking about "the best one" is plainly wrong, although you probably didn't mean it. For you, me and many others it's the best one. But Debian/Ubuntu and other distributions are also great in their own aspects. Their concept is to have an easy distribution that does not require a lot of maintainance. On Ubuntu (on Debian too, if set up, afaik), you are informed about updates, you can install them with a few clicks and don't have to care about them any more. On Gentoo you have to sync, update world, clean dependencies and sometimes use revdep-rebuild. Occasionally you have blocks, need to manually re-emerge a package because of a missing use flag, have to find out why something does not work. Ubuntu "just works" in most cases. Gentoo works if you make it working. Ubuntu works quite well. Gentoo works just as good as you can make it working which can of course be much better but also much worse than Ubuntu.
What I really miss in Debian based systems is something like a world file. After a while you have so much stuff installed, you don't need. And it's hard or even impossible to exactly find out what you don't want to have installed anymore. |
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swimmer
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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| VinzC: ++ |
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VinzC
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:55 am Post subject: |
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| MalleRIM wrote: | | Gentoo is for sure a great distribution. But talking about "the best one" is plainly wrong, although you probably didn't mean it. |
Of course, I didn't mean it... Well, although...
| In a paroxystic strike of subliminal revelations, VinzC wrote: | | Bear the comments of a Gentoo enthusiast . |
... hence the highly subjective comment. Ok, I don't want to start a long topic about explaining what I meant but let me just put some more words between the lines.
| MalleRIM wrote: | | For you, me and many others it's the best one. But Debian/Ubuntu and other distributions are also great in their own aspects. |
This is also absolutely true but remember one of my comments, which was I didn't want to criticize (also read focus on) Debian (nor other distros). The principles of USE flags make Gentoo an outsider in that it shows you exactly what you'll require and what you'll end up with. Binary distributions don't have that particular level of control and hinting.
In many cases binary distributions must pre-compile several variations of the same theme to make these variations available. See apache and apache2, mysql and mysql5 for instance. It would have been impossible otherwise for package versions, which are mutually exclusive. Gentoo has only one reference for apache in this case. It's apache-1.* or apache-2.* but the package name remains apache. Gentoo brings here a level of consistency that does not exist when distributing binaries -- why apache/apache2 instead of apache1/apache2, for instance?
| MalleRIM wrote: | | On Ubuntu (on Debian too, if set up, afaik), you are informed about updates, you can install them with a few clicks and don't have to care about them any more. On Gentoo you have to sync, update world, clean dependencies and sometimes use revdep-rebuild. [...] |
Hmmm... that's my one of my favorite grounds  .
Agreed: Gentoo sometimes requires a lot of efforts to fix breakages. Still note its' basically a level of efforts that relates to C/C++ developers if you want to fully understand what lies beneath but Gentoo dev's and community must be thanked a lot for having brought such a level of complexity to the understanding of non-developers.
Bear in mind though that updates on a binary distribution and updates on a source-based distribution are completely different things. If I understand you correctly, I'd answer you can't truely compare both means. Binary distributions can provide updates because there is somebody in the dark who (re-)compiles packages for you then publishes the binaries. Implied is the frequency of updates, which must probably be less than sources. Since it's up to you to compile things in Gentoo, the update process is completely different.
You are in fact comparing principles that have nothing in common -- as far as package management is concerned. Binary distributions have developers who take care of breakages for you. Source-based distributions will never be able to provide such a level of protection -- although Gentoo dev's must be thanked for making their best to minimize annoyances like the previous ones. (Remember apache2 and expat migrations?)
I prefer a source-based distribution because it lets me adapt the compiled code to the power of my CPU. I like Gentoo in particular because of the way it's thought, implemented.
Look: take baselayout, for instance. It's like a little jewel to me. I might be wrong but I haven't found an equivalent in other ones (for I probably haven't searched enough) and in Debian in particular. I like the personal orientation Gentoo took sometimes especially as far as networking is concerned, for instance. Also environment variables are clearly separated from shell variables, aliases aso. In other distributions it can look like a mess. I never paid attention to that until I looked somewhere else.
In all, dispatch-conf and etc-update are enough to make me stick to Gentoo. Add gentoolkit, portage and baselayout and it definitely has got my devotion forever .
| MalleRIM wrote: | | Ubuntu "just works" in most cases. Gentoo works if you make it working. |
I'd say that something that just works doesn't necessarily force you to wonder *why* it works. I don't mean a system has to break to make you learn. There must have been some simplifications around in a system that has been tailored to just work. Again I don't mean you can't do what you want but wanting to learn on such systems requires a different approach. (I think I'm digging a hole here so let's take an example.)
Is there anything more exciting than learning the principles while installing one's own system? Once you've installed a system through a wizard there is no such fun because you've got to learn *afterwards*. You'd have to install Debian manually to get to the same level of excitment. What's more pleasant than finding yourself in front of a system that you've installed with you fingers and knowledge , knowing exactly what's required to step up to the next one? The required learning curve takes place while you install your system. If you're ready for that, it's probably the best moment to graps the principles of Linux. And Gentoo Handbook is perfect for that.
Yes, I'm talking about the learning curve because it's what matters most to me if one wants to be a smart computer user. I pay much attention to that because I knew almost nothing of UNIX systems and of GNU/Linux in general when I switched to Gentoo. Following Gentoo Handbook made me realize I had a treasure under my eyes.
For example: right after reading the book and installing my first systems I was able to progressively fix startup scripts on a Suse server that was installed by somebody else... I would probably not have been able to do that as fast if I had installed a system with a wizard because it would have required me to start learning afterwards, in which case I would have had no clue as to where to start...
BTW wanting something that works right out the box is different from wanting to learn how things work. Both these goals require different approaches and travel on different roads. Gentoo is absolutely fabulous at making you understand how and why things work: because you're learning it during the installation steps.
The Graphical Wizard Hype has been brought down by systems like Window$, probably. I won't comment on this to stay polite . Fact is Wizards and manual installations have different goals and consequences. I can only say I prefer the consequences manual installations have had on me... I'm sure there are many people who share my opinion.
As a conclusion, the title of my initial post had -- of course -- to be translated (or interpreted) into an idea that obviously came from a Gentoo enthusiast. Before I would have blindly repeated "what makes Gentoo particular is the USE flags". Now I *know* why.
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MalleRIM
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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You are absolutely right. Your reasons for using Gentoo are exactly the same as mine. Actually, we seem to be of almost the same opinion in this whole matter.
Just for clarifying the reason for my post: I don't like things like "xyz is the best". I'd rather like to see "xyz is the best for..." or "xyz is one of the best when it comes to...". Some things can't be compared because they have different principles, a different target audency etc.
I might be a little quibbling
It's because I often see the Open Source Community devided into several groups belittling each other for various reasons. Geeks vs. newbies, distro x vs. distro y. paludis vs. pkgcore, Linux vs. BSD, GNOME vs. KDE, GPL vs. MIT... There should be more unity. |
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VinzC
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:09 am Post subject: |
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| MalleRIM wrote: | You are absolutely right. Your reasons for using Gentoo are exactly the same as mine. Actually, we seem to be of almost the same opinion in this whole matter.
Just for clarifying the reason for my post: I don't like things like "xyz is the best". I'd rather like to see "xyz is the best for..." or "xyz is one of the best when it comes to...". Some things can't be compared because they have different principles, a different target audency etc.
I might be a little quibbling
It's because I often see the Open Source Community devided into several groups belittling each other for various reasons. Geeks vs. newbies, distro x vs. distro y. paludis vs. pkgcore, Linux vs. BSD, GNOME vs. KDE, GPL vs. MIT... There should be more unity. |
There was an intentional teasing in my subject .
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Iguana8649
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| Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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Completely Off-Topic:
Kinda question:
| Quote: | | What I really miss in Debian based systems is something like a world file. After a while you have so much stuff installed, you don't need. And it's hard or even impossible to exactly find out what you don't want to have installed anymore. |
Answer:
So FILE is kinda a word-file. |
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ilborg
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:01 am Post subject: |
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Maybe more like best distribution to moderate/advanced users with desktop computer. I have been playing with ubuntu, debian, arch and gentoo.
Debian is actually worst of those: It has oldest packages in stable release and testing version has it's problems too. One of biggest annoying thing was when they removed nvidia drivers from repositories. One time apt-get tried to remove kernel I was using. Debian is quite hostile non gpl-software, if it ain't gpl you have to get from somewhere else. If user manages to get non-free software and install it("the wrong way") then probably next time she upgrades the software is when it does not work anymore.
Ubuntu is much better in allmost any way. It's slow as debian but much more up to date. Problem is with old computers that doesn't have much memory and speed. You can of course remove stuff you don't need but still you don't get it quite fast because the basic system is still quite large. Ubuntu is though very good for those newbies who don't like to learn much about computers. With old computers it's easier to try one of next systems:
Arch is quite minimal system. It's kind of system which you build quite from the scratch. It has nice installing program and packages are fresh. It relies much on binary packages wich is nice if you don't want to mess around customising programs. Some times it's quite annoying when programs compile with needles options like smb etc. Packages are actually fresher than in gentoo wich makes me think that probably they are not as well tested as they probably should be. One problem I have seen is that packages does install new configs to /etc without prompting. I have installed arch on two machines that both had only 4GB hard drive and on the other computer I don't have the time to compile everything(400MHz Pentium 2) so it seemed to be the easiest way to choose arch.
Gentoo is minimal system too. Quite much common with the principles with arch but instead of binary packages gentoo uses portage and sources. With use flags you can customize programs very much and make system very fast/small. Gentoo doesn't have the very latest software but package keywords is very good way if you want/need to upgrade some program to more recent version. There are some nice organisation in /etc directory compared to other distros, and some nice tools to tweak configs. Allthought gentoo could seem very hard to use for a beginner it is much simplier than it first time seems. All you have to know is how to read english manuals and a little bit of computers. Manuals are probably the best in linux world. They show how linux and gentoo works. Actually it was the manuals which made me to choose gentoo when.
Gentoo has a nice package policity, so you can install non-free software. I think it is important because those software would be installed anyway and would only make user more frustrated. Gentoo portage is mostly very good but it has some drawbacks. Portage does not have support for changing gcc automatically. This doesn't affect on many programs but needs a little bit more work. What is nice feature in portage is the message system which gives you hints about that program.
Overall I think that there are three good distros that I have used. Debian is only one which I don't recommend to anyone. Good replacement would be arch or gentoo depending on what do you want. Gentoo for those who want reliable system and has a little time to wait for programs to compile. Arch for those who like more binary packets(no waiting, no customisation). Ubuntu for those who don't want use much time on reading manuals but are ready to enter in the linux world(ready to understand that windows!=computer interface) |
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VinzC
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:29 am Post subject: |
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After touring a little into the binary distro world, I confirm -- what has been said multiple times -- the argument for Gentoo being the best is the flexibility that USE flags bring. You can selectively compile dependencies. With binary distributions adding/removing a package might pull down/remove used dependencies as well. Dependencies are pre-compiled with binary distributions.
For example, installing jpgraph on Debian-like distro's (and probably others too) requires GD library, which brings down xorg binaries; the latter are useless on a headless server. You *must* cope with that -- unless you compile the packages you need with the appropriate directives. And if I need to compile to be comfortable with a distro, well, better Gentoo than anything else.
Gentoo's best primarily not because it's Gentoo but because it's a source-based distribution. Then Gentoo rocks them all because of all the rest.
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steveL
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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| VinzC wrote: | | Gentoo's best primarily not because it's Gentoo but because it's a source-based distribution. Then Gentoo rocks them all because of all the rest. :D |
++ |
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emilycarvar
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| All about Gentoo is discussed in this forum so its now very clear that what is it Gentoo Linux is a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need.Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, flexible, and optimized for the user's machine. Gentoo describes itself as a meta distribution because of its near-unlimited adaptability.The goal of the Gentoo is to provide an accessible web-based service for easy collaboration on various documents relating to the development and use of the Gentoo distribution and for related community needs. |
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d2_racing
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 11:51 am Post subject: |
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| Gentoo is the best because it's source based and the idea behind the Use flags make Gentoo so special in the Linux world. |
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VinzC
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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Wow! reviving a 2 year-old thread !
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djdunn
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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Most linux distros are like a keg of beer, the longer you keep it around, the more stale it gets, till its used up or you just have to replace the whole thing.
A Gentoo Box however is like a fine wine, it only gets better with age.
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yngwin
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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| VinzC wrote: | | Wow! reviving a 2 year-old thread ! |
By quoting stuff from our about page. Very suspect.
By the way, love your Starbuck avatar!
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VinzC
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| VinzC wrote: | | Wow! reviving a 2 year-old thread ! |
| yngwin wrote: | | By quoting stuff from our about page. Very suspect. |
Fact is I wasn't the first .
| VinzC wrote: | | By the way, love your Starbuck avatar! |
You're the first who notices . In fact she's from Bionic Woman remake: Sarah Corvus. She's a real bad-ass in that series, more than in Galactica. [And I love bad girls, dunno why...]
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Muso
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 5:23 pm Post subject: Re: Gentoo's the best distribution around ;-) |
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| VinzC wrote: | | In fact Gentoo USE flags not only allow you to *choose* which dependency you'll compile but also to *see* what the package can do. Without any USE flag you'll never see at once postfix can be linked against cdb, ldap or mysql, that emacs has support for Kerberos or sasl... These are just examples. Binary distributions don't give you that level of granularity nor do they allow to instantly see what's required for a package or what functionnality a given package supports. |
I never thought about it like that, but you're right. Though in all fairness sorcery does the same thing, albeit less automated.
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VinzC
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| Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 9:34 pm Post subject: Re: Gentoo's the best distribution around ;-) |
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| VinzC wrote: | | In fact Gentoo USE flags not only allow you to *choose* which dependency you'll compile but also to *see* what the package can do. Without any USE flag you'll never see at once postfix can be linked against cdb, ldap or mysql, that emacs has support for Kerberos or sasl... These are just examples. Binary distributions don't give you that level of granularity nor do they allow to instantly see what's required for a package or what functionnality a given package supports. |
| Chopinzee wrote: | | I never thought about it like that, but you're right. Though in all fairness sorcery does the same thing, albeit less automated. |
Haha
Sorcery would allow you to emerge an automated process that does the rest for you automatically . Gentoo has not (yet) reached that level of self-engineering -- you still have to code that process anyway .
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yzg
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| Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:08 am Post subject: |
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| In other 'easy-to-use' distributions you get what somebody decided it is good for a hypothetical average user. You can call it 'Windowization' of Linux. Gentoo does not assume this average user. You will bring your own. This is what open s/w is supposed to be. |
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8mihi
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| Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:04 am Post subject: |
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VinzC: ++
My only other Linux experience is with Slackware, which I feel is (still) the best, most mature 'binary' distribution, but I really think Gentoo stands alone in it's approach as a 'Meta' distro. After many years in IT, I'm convinced that software should be 'built/optimized' for the environment it's going to work within and that packages should be built with 'just what is needed' for the near term.
Then again, I'd love to see the 'Stage 1' install reconstituted/mainstreamed back into the Handbook as an addendum/optional (if not the primary!) install method...seriously, no joke. I still consider my first Stage 1, many moons ago now, as that experience which got me dialed into Linux with that 'never going back' (to MS/Apple hegemony) attitude. |
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d2_racing
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VinzC
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| Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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I fully agree, 8mihi.
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d2_racing
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| Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Funtoo create the Stage 1,3 I think, but as you can see, not everytime. |
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