3lade Posted June 11, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2003 OK, lets say for example I decide to get my grubby little hands of a copy of Gentoo (least I could join the big Gentoo trend that appears to be happening, bah bah *I'm a little sheep*) what would make this any different from Mandrake? I know this might sound really dumb ass, but what makes one distro easier/better/more stable than another? If I ran OpenOffice in KDE3.1 on a Mandrake machine surely it would be the same as a similar install on Gentoo? (ever get the feeling the can of worms looks better in the cupboard, unopened) I just dont get it :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 11, 2003 Report Share Posted June 11, 2003 not to go being a gentoo evangilist or anything, but the deal is not how the programs run, it's more how you get to that point.... i.e.: mandrake does everything (well, practically everything) for you-many distro's are like this gentoo-everything gets compiled, you only put what you want on the system, no programs (accept the basics) get installed without you explicitly telling them to be installed. now, mandrake and gentoo are just examples. basically, different distro's have different features, do things differently (RPM vs. emerge/portage vs. debian vs. etc.-examples of the packaging/installation systems). it's more the way things are done than the end product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 Not only how you get there, but gentoo is not as sluggish in the gui environment. I assume that is because it is compiled totally on my machine. I am running, as close as possible, the same kde setup in gentoo as I am running in mandrake. I intend to bootstrap mandrake as soon as I have gentoo back again. (I, of course, broke gentoo playing around!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 install tarballs instead of rpms... typical guru advice. why say that if you only want a newbie to compile from source? if he is using a rpm-based system then he needs to make use of the packagement system. if it was me ill tell him to compile from source and then install it as a rpm package (using checkinstall or by creating the rpm package manually). but that's just me and im just a newbie. :#: :P ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 sigh. 1. only doing lfs will you learn the most. honestly...or maybe rock linux. gentoo strips ALOT of steps out for the user. with LFS you have to learn how to do it all from creating your install to setting up the init script and administering everything. gentoo strips most of this out. 2. COMPILING FOR YOUR ARCHITECTURE IS NOT WHAT MAKES GENTOO FAST!!!! cut down the services you run in mandrake or debian and you can gain alot more speed just doing that alone. there is alot more to making a fast efficient distro than just compiling your own source. in fact one would have to be pretty fricken perceptive to detect the difference between the same processor (lets say an AMD XP 1800+) running the same apps with the generic -march=i686 -O2 -pipe optimizations and -march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe. or start optimizing with even simple -O3 and watch the miili seconds of difference....if your app can even run with -O3 flags. 3. With Gentoo you do not have as "bare" distro as you might think. i know from my package maintianing duties at arch linux that many build dependencies are just that build dependencies. as in those packages are not required for the appliction to run. often a user wil never even require the packages at all. with gentoo you often are stuck with these because many ebuilds do not or cannot handle the removal of build dependencies without taking the target package with it. by no means are you risking serious amount of disk space with such dependencies but with enough of them it will begin to add up. binary distros don't have this problem. 4. A great many distros allow you to install a simple bare base (most of these are devoid of X even) to which you can add what ever you want. so from this point and taking into mind dependencies to take to boxes to the same end point would see both haveing essentially the same thing. of course "user friendly" distros such as mandrake would automate something to the detriment of system efficiency but if you know where to look for the configuration files and know what changes to make there is no reason not to have a system that is every bit as good speed and efficiency wise as gentoo or other source based distros. 5. Portage is no big deal. So it solves dependencies and compiles source. big deal. with the right knowledge you can do this with any system. dependency solving package mangers are common now and portage is just another one of them. it is no better. 6. If you ever do work as root be carefull that you always always always always don't remove something that will force you to reinstall your root (ie watch out in /lib, /bin, and so forth) because you will have to take all those many hours to recover. while your are spending hours compiling openoffice or kde us binary distro users are already installed, fixed up, and have ripped our entire dvd, cd and video tape collection. basically if your developers know what they are doing with there binary distro and their focus is not as lofty as mandrake then there is no reason a binary distro cannot be every bit as good or better than gentoo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3lade Posted June 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 Finally some one explained things is a way I could understand :? Only joking Sarah31, I'm sure after I will read back sometime and it will all make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 2. COMPILING FOR YOUR ARCHITECTURE IS NOT WHAT MAKES GENTOO FAST!!!! cut down the services you run in mandrake or debian and you can gain alot more speed just doing that alone. there is alot more to making a fast efficient distro than just compiling your own source. in fact one would have to be pretty fricken perceptive to detect the difference between the same processor (lets say an AMD XP 1800+) running the same apps with the generic -march=i686 -O2 -pipe optimizations and -march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe. or start optimizing with even simple -O3 and watch the miili seconds of difference....if your app can even run with -O3 flags.then what's the point? (and yes, i'm serious, not being sarcastic). if compiling for your architecture (i.e. athlonxp) doesn't make a -noticeable- difference, then why did anyone ever add that capability? and I agree that the lack of auto-loaded services in gentoo (and any other distro) speeds things up....gentoo makes it easier to do that-as i'm sure do other distros. the rest of the stuff you said is pretty much facts, so no need to agree/disagree with it :-). honestly, i went to gentoo because i heard about it from someone on this board, and thought hmm i'll try it. i'm still considering giving LFS a try sometime soon here. and i need to find a distro for my progrear, which is where arch linux may come in. but back to the point of this thread.... LFS-learn everything you ever wanted to know (and then some). Gentoo (and similar distros)-get a decent idea w/o getting down and dirty Mandrake (and similar distros)-easy install, but you can play around with it a bit too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3lade Posted June 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 I had a quick look at Gentoo site last night, read the install instructions; ouch! To be honest I think I will have to wait a bit on messing about with a distro, my mandrake box at work is now an intranet and database server, dont think I should mess about with it until I know what I'm really doing or can afford the downtime. Next option is to set up another PC to 'play' on. *keeps looking at the P3 processor sitting in my desk* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 then what's the point? (and yes, i'm serious, not being sarcastic). if compiling for your architecture (i.e. athlonxp) doesn't make a -noticeable- difference, then why did anyone ever add that capability? and I agree that the lack of auto-loaded services in gentoo (and any other distro) speeds things up....gentoo makes it easier to do that-as i'm sure do other distros. okay don't get me wrong you will gain speed when compiling for your architecture (i586 or i686) over distros that still use generic i386 optimizations. that is obvious. but whe you get up to differences between i586 and the divisions within those the most of the options that deal with speed are not that different nor are speed differences that noticable above the obvious speed difference you get between processors (obviously a i586 chip will be slower than an i686). most deal with the technical differences between say a pentium and amd chip. while it is better for your system to run compile options that suit your chip these optimizations do not always result in speed bumps. they deal with sending data through the proper channel. think of it this way. because i have new shoes on today that fit my feet perfectly and are light as heck does tha mean i will run faster today than i did with my old shoes? another good example of this is running Debian and Libranet. Both the same optimizations but Libranet is (or was when i used both) faster. As i added more services to what i was running on Libranet the system got slower and slower until it was about the same load times etc as my plain debian install. basically optimizations are good and i recommend them but they are NOT the sole reason that makes one distro faster than another. the rest of the stuff you said is pretty much facts, so no need to agree/disagree with it :-). honestly, i went to gentoo because i heard about it from someone on this board, and thought hmm i'll try it. i'm still considering giving LFS a try sometime soon here. and i need to find a distro for my progrear, which is where arch linux may come in. one of these days i will give LFS a try too. that is a matter of having the time. but back to the point of this thread.... LFS-learn everything you ever wanted to know (and then some). Gentoo (and similar distros)-get a decent idea w/o getting down and dirty Mandrake (and similar distros)-easy install, but you can play around with it a bit too wouldn't argue with this ...except there is really nothing that is stopping someone using ANY flavor of linux in the same way as another flavor. it really comes down to how lazy you are. certain distros cater to laziness (or lack of interest) but because they do does not mean that you cannot learn the nitty gritty of workings underneath the auto tools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 sarah31: thanks for helping my understand the whole optimization thing. now i also understand why arch is i686 (are any other distro's i686 based? most i've run into are i386, i586 if you're lucky). as for my list of distro's, yeah, you can use any distro however you want, i was just sort of seperating them up by what they _force_ you to learn-LFS you have to learn from the base up, gentoo the base is layed, etc. hope that clears it up :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyv Posted June 12, 2003 Report Share Posted June 12, 2003 compiliing for athlon-xp and a bunch of other optimisations really improved my 9.1 as opposed to the standard distro, windows open faster and refresh times are better, get an overall feeling of more smoothness also the stability seems to have improved and i am even using agp 4X with fast writes and the other thing without problems. So i would say it was worth rebuilding the rpms in my case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted June 13, 2003 Report Share Posted June 13, 2003 never said it wouldn't do that but ...heck read above if you don't understand then oh well. .. mandrake is i586 optimized so stepping up to athlon-xp is a fairly big step...not significant but eneough that you will notice more speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 13, 2003 Report Share Posted June 13, 2003 never said it wouldn't do that but ...heck read above if you don't understand then oh well. .. mandrake is i586 optimized so stepping up to athlon-xp is a fairly big step...not significant but eneough that you will notice more speed. i'm guessing i686->xp wouldn't be a noticeable difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarah31 Posted June 13, 2003 Report Share Posted June 13, 2003 well i didn't notice anything but i must note that my entire distro was not recompiled with xp optimizations. that being said i ran gentoo for a few weeks with xp optimizations then moved over to arch linux and definitely noticed a speed difference with just plain old -march=i686 -O2 -pipe options. my guess is that there is not much difference between the two though as the i686 set prolly has most of what is needed by the xp optimizations less a few efficiency optimization that would gain you very small performance or speed gains. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 13, 2003 Report Share Posted June 13, 2003 ah, i c... thnx :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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