Gentoo advantage? (was: [TriLUG] What distro do you use AT WORK on your SERVERS.)

[Matt Pusateri]

The downside to Gentoo is that it is mostly a complile from source
distro, so your old clunker laptop may take longer than you would like
to compile :)

Matt P.

On Wed, January 11, 2006 10:36 pm, Randall Barlow wrote:
> Cristobal Palmer wrote:
>
>>
>>I know that there are people on the list who are actively using
>> gentoo
>>in production environments, so can one of you give a more complete
>>argument for why the customization is easier?
>>
> I don't know that I would say that the customization of Gentoo is
> really
> easy necessarily, but *you* make the system the way *you* want it to
> be.  Gentoo is not for the casual user, or the new Linux convert for
> sure.  But the installation process is great for someone who wants to
> learn more about Linux, or even computers for that matter.
>
>> Does a gentoo install
>>start out significantly smaller?
>>
> YES!!!  Well, I don't know how it stacks up against DSL, but it's
> pretty
> freakin' small on a base install because that's exactly what you get
> with Gentoo - a base install.  You compile your kernel, install the
> basic Linux tools, yada yada, reboot, and bam you're at a blinking
> prompt.  It's small, but you can still choose to add more (X windows,
> yada yada).  Of course, most any distribution will allow you to do a
> stripped down install, but most of them don't compile from source.  As
> Jason pointed out, the USE flags are great for trimming down the
> packages, and this is something you won't get with any binary based
> distribution.  What you will NOT trim down is install time because
> compiling all those packages can take a loooong time (binaries are
> much
> faster to install for sure).
>
>> Do those of you who use it know that
>>you would be compiling just about everything to begin with?
>>
> Well, yeah, compiling these is what gives you all the flexibility.  If
> you don't use kde, don't compile support for kde in your apps
> (likewise
> if you don't use gnome).  For example, the machine I'm typing this on
> is
> rather old and has no DVD drive, so I put "-dvd" in my use flags and
> all
> programs that would otherwise support DVDs don't now.  If I later get
> a
> DVD drive, all I have to do is remove the minus in that USE flag and
> emerge --update --newuse --deep world (well, and wait possibly a long
> time :)) and bam, DVD support.  The same goes for compiling your own
> kernel.  Of course you can do this in any distribution, but the point
> is
> that Gentoo is made with customization in mind!
>
>> Give me
>>some arguments that'll inspire me to give gentoo a shot on _my_ old
>>clunker laptop.
>>
>>
> How about trying it as a challenge to learn new stuff?  Seriously, I
> learned a lot just in the install process.  I do actually use it on my
> $WORK machine as well (a Sun workstation), and it's been good for that
> as well.  I suppose I'd say that Gentoo is a good "hobbyist" Linux
> distribution though.  Sometimes you just need your machine to work
> with
> no hassles, and you may not get that very easily with Gentoo.  But if
> you're interested in learning a lot, and you have an old clunker and
> some free time, give it a whirl!
>
> --
> Randy Barlow
> Research Assistant
> Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
> North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
> rpbarlow at ncsu.edu
>
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