[oclug] My Current Gentoo Setup

[Ross Jordan]

> > > I don't think I would recommend gentoo for a server install because it
> > > would take forever to repair a problem.  If you got hacked, I wouldn't
> > > want to have 24 hours of downtime to do a reinstall :)  For desktop
> > > though, it is excellent.
> > 
> > Agreed, although a fast box running as a server should not have
> > too much to compile. I.E., there's no need to compile X and other
> > client programs. So, for a server with only a single dedicated task,
> > and a reasonably fast CPU, installation time would probably be about
> > the same time (and you may save time on the hardening process).
> 
> 
> The probelm isn't setting it up; it's living with it after you have it 
> installed. For one thing I am not 100% convinced that the Gentoo team
> has all their package dependencies worked out to the same degree as
> Debian or Redhat.

Well, I can had dependency problems with both Redhat and Debian, I
haven't yet had problems with Gentoo. This isn't a particularly fair
statement because I've used Redhat and Debian much longer, but they
certainly aren't perfect (esp. for Redhat).

> There is also the inevitable security updates. You
> will find yourself rebuilding a lot of packages, instead of doing a
> simple "apt-get update" or "dpkg -i".
It is simply an emerge --update world. Installation might be slightly
longer, but certainly within reasonable amounts of time on a fast
CPU (on my AMD 1600, most packages build in a couple minutes).

-Ross