[oclug] Gentoo

[Ross Jordan]

> > One of the big benefits to "compile to whole thing from scratch";
> > is that you get the compile time options that are appropriate for
> > you (using USE flags). i.e. package X has optional package Y support.
> > 
> > In the binary world, you get
> > a) package maintainer's choice
> > b) compile support for everything (bloat!, increased attack surface)
> > c) Operating system policy choice
> > b) package defaults
> > 
> > So, Gentoo is really nice for things like alsa vs. oss; using .maildir
> > vs mbox; vim vs. emacs; console only vs. X support; and in general for 
> > having smaller, faster binaries.
> > 
> > The other thing I like about Gentoo (and this is particularly compared
> > to Debian): their definition of stable is much saner (at least for me).
> > With Debian, choose rock solid and old, or new and broken. Gentoo's
> > stable is reasonably recent and (from my experience) just as stable
> > (as Debian stable).
> > Portage also makes it easy to run non-free packages such as java, 
> > vmware, qmail, mplayer and others which can be annoying to setup with 
> > other Linux distros. 
> 
> [GR]  In other words, Gentoo is for experienced users?

No, not exactly. I think Gentoo provides the highest configurability
at the lowest cost. That said, I wouldn't characterize Gentoo as a
beginner's distro. Gentoo forces you to get under the hood more than
some other distros, but the documentation is generally very well done.

-Ross