this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
46 points (85.9% liked)
Linux
48255 readers
778 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Real benefit. For average users it's debatable but if you want to exclude certain components or have complex dependencies "just work" without tons of docker images or need bleeding edge performance by tweaking everything, I don't see any other choice.
Also if you need to seamlessly integrate new projects that don't provide packages, writing a live ebuild is straight forward and will keep updated from a regular git repo just like any other package.
Want to compile certain stuff with clang and the rest with gcc? Or use libressl instead of openssl? Stuff like that? No problem. Just be aware that you might need to file bug reports if you do exotic stuff because gentoo won't prevent you from doing stuff nobody did before.
And installing gentoo by going through the install manual step-by-step, is certainly priceless for diving into linux under the hood. It's a bit like a LFS but without the hassle.
So, that sounds like the kind of thing you would want if you’re making something like a drone or a router, and you have very limited resources available in the device. Compiling can be done by a the cluster you you have in the factory, not the feeble pi zero on the final product itself.
However, I can totally see why many people would want to run Gentoo at home too. It’s a pretty cool idea, and if it’s cool you might be willing to put up with the drawbacks.
Highly customized/optimized Linux images certainly are one use case of gentoo.
The "cool factor" is a significant point. My gentoo laptop (which I update rarely besides browser/security updates) boots in under 3 seconds to graphical login :-)
Actually most compiling is pretty quick on modern systems (compile in DDR4 ramdisk, nvme, fast CPU etc.) I'd say, most stuff compiles as quickly as installing a binary nowadays.
It's the huge stuff that's annoying: webkit, rust, Qt, boost, firefox/chromium etc. But one can skip updates easily or use precompiled binary packages that are provided for big stuff.
Pi4 is perfectly doable. But Pi Zero won't be a lot of fun.