I used Gentoo for 3y. in hindsight I wasted so many CPU cycles just because I thought --march=native would make things faster.
nope.
you know what made things faster? switching to arch 😂
When CPUs were a lot slower you could genuinely get noticeable performance improvements by compiling packages yourself, but nowadays the overhead from running pre-compiled binaries is negligible.
Hell, even Gentoo optionally offers binary packages now.
Most of the reason to build your own packages is a form of runtime assurance - to know what your computer is running is 100% what you intend.
At least as a guix user that’s what I tell myself.
Do you audit all the code before compiling? Otherwise you’re just transferring your trust elsewhere.
This is my experience playing with FreeBSD.
“These ports are cool, I can compile all the software from source so I know exactly what I’m getting!”
[This software has 100 dependencies]
“Well I’m not reading all that, I’ll just click Yes for all”
Compiling your own packages only ensures that, well, you’re running packages that you compiled. This definitely does not mean that your computer is running what you intend at all.
Half the time I don’t know what my CPU is executing, and that’s code that I wrote myself.
This definitely does not mean that your computer is running what you intend at all.
This is true of all programming
I like to imagine that the early heroes who programmed in punch cards and basically raw machine code knew exactly what the CPU was the computer was running, but who knows…
Eventually you’ll come back to wanting a working easy to use system
I’ve become my dad. God damn you passage of time!
I never tried gentoo cause i never liked the idea of compiling everything. I only compile if i have to because i always feel like it’s a waste of time in general. I have used NixOS for the past 6 months though, but i didn’t like how many issues it gave me when updating. Now i’m back on good old void linux.
Now imagine the same meme but with Gentoo and LFS
I tried Gentoo recently and I really liked it when I finally figured everything out. I wanted the latest packages similar to arch, but I was basically spending at least an hour every time I started my computer updating. I still really like Gentoo, but it just isn’t for me right now. I appreciate what it taught me about Linux though
What did Gentoo teach you about Linux?
I main it (and am never switching again btw), but I learned absolutely nothing new. Packages build themselves, and everything works.
I was hoping to learn new things about compiling from source, but I guess I will have to make ebuilds for that.
Compiling dependencies for an hour or so every time I wanted to install something also got a bit old.
“Tell me one last thing”, said Harry. “did i install Open BSD for real? Or has this business, the dual boot failure , both computers damaged, the sharks, all been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore chortled at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright ocean mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
I’m not even ready for Arch because I can’t make decisions for myself.
That’s easy, just pick btrfs, gnome, pipewire, systemd, gdm, grub, and add flatpak in your additional packages.
Every other configuration is wrong.
/s
Newfangled bullshit! Choose ext2, twm, alsa, sysvinit, xinit, and compile additional software from source.
ext4, sway, pipewire, systemd, just use the the standard vconsole, grub and use pacman/AUR/custom PKGBUILDs for everything
Mostly agreed except for grub. Systemd-boot ftw
I mean it used to be called gummiboot. What more do you want?
Friends.
But besides that, yeah, other bootloaders would probably be good for my use case, but … I’m too lazy, especially because 3/5 of my machines are supposed to be always on (and 2/5 are remote), so changing bootloader will be a hassle.
Try endeavoros, it’s an opinionated arch with a simple installer
That’s unironically why I like Manjaro 😅
Back in the early 2010s, I had a friend told me that his computer crashed trying to compile all of Gentoo.
NixOS is the better source-based distro. Everything can compile from source, but you can also use the binary cache if you don’t want to.
Nah, Fedora is better, because it has a nice looking logo in neofetch.
