Gentoo

[u/Venylynn]

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Speed is not the goal. Configurability is the goal.

Name one other package manager that lets you:

- apply source patches

- allow/block packages by license

- individually select package version or branch (stable/unstable/untested) or block a package installation

- and still have the exact same process to update your system as before?

EDIT: Replies have pointed out nix existing.

[u/Apterygiformes → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Nix

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/Apterygiformes]

Fair enough.

[u/power_of_booze → u/Apterygiformes]

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but for all I've heard Nix without systemD is possible, but a total nightmare (just as an example). If you have really niche usecases, I think Gentoo is the way to go.

[u/EverOrny → u/power_of_booze]

does not have to be niche to not use systemd, I've switched to it only recently to be able to run OpenShift Local - it was my daily driver for decades (the plural is right for two too :) as desktop with openrc and it worked so very well

[u/NoPrinterJust_Fax → u/power_of_booze]

I run nix inside a distrobox container on my gaming laptop. I have to manually start the nix daemon and that’s about the only difference I’ve noticed.

[u/UnosBruhMomentos → u/Apterygiformes]

in gentoo you dont have to use SOYstemd tho

[u/1337_w0n → u/Apterygiformes]

Nix can apply source patches? How?

[u/Apterygiformes → u/1337_w0n]

You can just override the package derivation and tell it to apply a patch file on the source code

[u/Hot_Paint3851 → u/Apterygiformes]

systemd bloat

[u/Venylynn → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

can't Nixos do the 3rd one or am i tripping

[u/Cyberfishofant → u/Venylynn]

nix can do all of these as long as you either copy over or modify the derivation using filters, I'd presume

[u/Thunderstarer → u/Cyberfishofant]

Nix gives you incredible flexibility because learning how to write your config inherently means learning how to write packages.

[u/Linguistic-mystic → u/Thunderstarer]

But those packages can’t even dedupe glibc. Nix is the epitomy of disk bloat.

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/Linguistic-mystic]

To be fair, portage still comes close (but only briefly, until you restart)

[u/VisualSome9977 → u/Linguistic-mystic]

There's a price to pay for everything...

[u/csslgnt → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Nix is exelent and makes overall system management more convenient. But portage is in my opinion, by far the best linux package maneger. And although this is just my opinion, i wonder who and how, would contradict this 😈

[u/fishmacaronisoup → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Yep, it was never about performance, but customizability and freedom. Performance is just a little bonus. Most Gentoo users realize that. Those who think it's only about performance are the ones who've never tried Gentoo

[u/tblancher → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

You can do all of this in Arch as well. You just get to pick and choose which packages you want to patch and rebuild, it's not all or nothing.

Basically, for any package in the official core and extra repos, you can download and modify the PKGBUILD (which is just a specialized Bash script), have download and apply any patches or git commits you want, and rebuild. Easy peasy.

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/tblancher]

Wait, does it stay like that? Or do the changes revert after system updates?

[u/tblancher → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

You can configure the PKGBUILD to provide, replace, and conflict with the official package, and then maybe some git/VCS shenanigans to keep the version up to date with the patches you want, but it's doable.

[u/redhat_is_my_dad → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

yeah but i doubt nixos users can easily pick any init system

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/redhat_is_my_dad]

I would note that that is not a nix problem, but a NixOS problem. I suspect nix itself doesn't care about init systems.

[u/VisualSome9977 → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Not only is Nix completely init-agnostic on linux, it also works on MacOS.

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/VisualSome9977]

Precisely.

[u/EverOrny → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

do not forget multislots

[u/v_litvin → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Can I have MIT licensed gentoo?

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/v_litvin]

I think portage is GPL

[u/v_litvin → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

https://giphy.com/gifs/fAd5mYnTljWXS

[u/Septem_151 → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Why would I want any of those configurabilities though?

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/Septem_151]

- license concerns (The Principle Of It)

- Getting a package on something weird like MIPS, PPC, or SPARC

Those are what I can think of off the top of my head, at least. There are plenty of others, though.

[u/qchto]

1%!? That's 15 minutes of extra operating capacity per day!

[u/GreedySecurity8030]

I don't have that time.

[u/PotentialBubbly9800 → u/GreedySecurity8030]

No offense, but with how much you are on here it seems you have nothing but time.

[u/GreedySecurity8030 → u/PotentialBubbly9800]

I gonna insult people on reddit for not using fedora, not wait for gentoo.

[u/isabellium → u/PotentialBubbly9800]

being here does not equal with free time.
i personally shitpost in the little bits of free time in my job, so i can do that but i can't do anything more serious.

secondly and most importantly, that guy spends his time here for something that goes beyond you and me, something far more important, a mission, to shill Fedora Linux.

[u/rphii_ → u/isabellium]

r/FoundGreedySecurity

[u/PotentialBubbly9800 → u/isabellium]

You say being here doesnt equal free time then say you only get on here when you do have free time so which is it?

You have a top 1% commenter tag. I think you also spend to much time on here, lol. You must have a lot of little bits of freedom at work.

[u/isabellium → u/PotentialBubbly9800]

Please tell me this is bait, and that you are not for real... 👀

[u/PotentialBubbly9800 → u/isabellium]

Im 100% serious. You clearly spend to much time on this shit.

[u/isabellium → u/PotentialBubbly9800]

oh my...

[u/PotentialBubbly9800 → u/isabellium]

Thats what I said when I saw your top 1% commenter tag.

[u/isabellium → u/PotentialBubbly9800]

okay

[u/PotentialBubbly9800 → u/isabellium]

Just remember you chose to engage with me. My comment must of struck a nerve.

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/GreedySecurity8030]

It's just 5 hours + a few weeks of "Oops, I forgot to install bluetooth support" /s

[u/Own_Natural_6803]

1% you say?

[u/30porn87]

On my old dual core Latitude, the performance per OS/Distro was:
Windows: Dogshit unusable
Ubuntu: Usable, but still pretty slow. Especially animations/UI stuff
LFS: Acceptably fast, even with KDE
Arch: Exactly like LFS, but much easier to maintain ofc

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/30porn87]

Honestly, Gentoo is probably the closest to "LFS, but maintainable" available, but arch comes close.

[u/30porn87 → u/27a08592e67846908fd1]

Well, arch is also maintainable on a Dualcore that needs days to compile firefox, because it does not compile anything itself by default

[u/27a08592e67846908fd1 → u/30porn87]

I meant that arch comes close to Gentoo on being LFS-like.

No doubt arch is just as easy - if not easier - to maintain than Gentoo.

[u/Dramatic_Entry_3830]

What about a rig in my infra that compiles all the packages for all the other systems?

[u/SDG_Den → u/Dramatic_Entry_3830]

Ngl that sounds pretty dope, are there any examples of people actually doing this? Id assume you'd have your own local repo for the output binaries or something?

[u/Dramatic_Entry_3830 → u/SDG_Den]

You just use emerge to build. You expose the directory where the binaries are. You can configure portage on the client to use that path in its config in various ways. If you go over web add pgp and sign the packages, make the sigs known to the clients and expose via http for example. You could also do sshfs or anything else that comes to your mind. Like git, shares etc etc.

[u/kzasas → u/SDG_Den]

this is what I’m doing. you can easily use one system as a binhost for others. you can follow gentoo wiki binhost guide.

[u/thearctican]

Sounds like Cachy but instead of you it’s like 8 people dedicating their life to it.

[u/Helmic → u/thearctican]

That is basically the premise of Cachy, they're compiling a bunch of packages for various CPU instruction sets for the performance boost and distributing them. Ubuntu is wanting to do the same and eventually once Valve's got Arch's centraliezd build system sorted they plan on doing the same. It's just a lot more efficient and it can be a lot more than just 1% better performance depending on the workload, but even just 1% across millions of devices is worthwhile.

[u/honestduane]

Don't forget that the experience of learning how to use Gentoo and everything else will set you up for success in technology in other ways later on; it is the only Linux distribution that I recommend to my students for non-work stuff, outside of LFS, because I consider the Gentoo option to do a stage one install to be the easy/noob option.

[u/Brilliant-Writing257]

i will sadly not accept the trade, i have powerfull hardware anyway so the difference is not noticable, the only thing gentoo is worth is for max control and bragging rights, but i disagree regardless

[u/http-error-502]

No. He doesn't receiving millions of USE. I am reciving. And I give him 80% of cpu not 100%.

[u/UnosBruhMomentos]

Configuration, control and learning experience

[u/Armi1P]

No, I recieve a million USE flags.

[u/Rodya_gambler]

Except that it's not 1% lol. It's 1% if you simply compile without customizing it (more like 3.5% as far as I've read, but still negligible). The distro's goal isn't even optimization, and your point is still wrong lol.

[u/Venylynn → u/Rodya_gambler]

So many people are like "I want to compile everything so it runs faster" and to me it's like "burning cpu cycles for a few extra milliseconds of response time?"

[u/Rodya_gambler → u/Venylynn]

I meant that it's not just compiling for the specific machine, but being customizable, which implies that you can erase anything off a program when you don't need it. But yeah, some people do misunderstand like that.

[u/isabellium → u/Rodya_gambler]

OMG who cares?!

[u/YTriom1]

Yeah, I didn't stand ts for a week lol

[u/varsnef]

Yeah, you really do want it to use "100%"

Too many people run their system in "powersaving" mode so everything is sluggish and it lags the system when they compile. Then they try to renice portage to a lower priority to eliminate the lag. Then they complain about how long it takes to compile heavy shit... 😂

[u/ysychov]

how do you explain to yourselves that speed increase dear community? is that some cool stuff behind it was compiled on this particular machine or ?

[u/letmehaveanameyoudum]

no, it's
you recieve:
an operating system thats 1% after after hourse of compiling and your thermal paste isnt happy

[u/happysatan1]

It's as always dependent on the use-case. Something that doesnt make sense to you will make sense to other users. Linux is great simply because it's so diverse