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I never used Arch but I have used Gentoo for really long. Everything what I read about Arch sounded a bit primitive to me. Are there any advantages of Arch ove

I never used Arch but I have used Gentoo for really long. Everything what I read about Arch sounded a bit primitive to me. Are there any advantages of Arch over Gentoo? Or are there good comparisons?

Jach 15y ago
I have a friend who uses Arch, she likes it a lot. I've been a Gentoo user for a number of years. From my outside perspective, Arch is similar to Gentoo in terms of configurability and power but without the beefy install process and it has a mirror of pre-built binaries for packages (you can compile from source if you want) where Gentoo typically only keeps binaries around for big things like OpenOffice, browsers, and proprietary drivers. Arch definitely seems more Linuxy though in the heritage of Debian, whereas Gentoo seems to take a bunch of ideas from the BSD folk. One thing I love about Portage over pacman is the masking. Arch seems to take bleeding-edge a little less seriously.
imrehg 15y ago
So far the main difference I've seen: With Gentoo you have to compile everything yourself (as much as I can tell). With Arch, you _can_ compile everything yourself, but don't have to: official repos have packages precompiled, but the package source is there if you want something different.
- albertzeyer 15y ago
  On Gentoo, you can also use binary packages. You can setup some variable to some host which has all the binary packages for you. There are some public servers with x86 and amd64, although none are really official.
zeekay 15y ago
I'm not about to remove Gentoo from my older servers, but I'm probably never going to install it again. Not having to compile everything is a huge win. The Arch build system is fantastic. It's easier to create/maintain your own packages. Arch's packages seem to be of higher quality, and more frequently updated. I've found the last few months of using Arch to be completely delightful.
agravier 15y ago
I switched from Gentoo (4 years user) to Arch (now 4 years) and although the "close to the internals" philosophy are similar, which may make the two distros look the similar, the two are not comparable. Gentoo compiles from scratch by default, and is a real time sink in terms of maintainance. Gentoo is much more complex, I mean that for you as sysadmin of your own computer, the number of "free variables" to tune in gentoo is much greater than in Arch. Often, you end up over-optimizing your Gentoo box. In the end, more packages end up not working or not able to accept some input or plug-ins because of some compilation detail, for instance in my experience. However, Gentoo is closer to LFS. I learnt the details of manual configuration and compilation of the linux kernel thanks to Gentoo. I learnt initrc, set up the logging system I wanted, etc... What I learnt using Gentoo lets me sail through Arch administration with zero hassle. After fixing my Gentoo box numerous times, I understand the compromise that is made in Arch between power, simplicity of administration and time consumed doing real work. Arch maintains a "pro" feeling, does not try to hide the internals, while keeping a minimal number of "free variables" for you to tweak. Does that make Arch primitive? Maybe, and in that case, I like primitiveness inmy distros.

I never used Arch but I have used Gentoo for really long. Everything what I read about Arch sounded a bit primitive to me. Are there any advantages of Arch over Gentoo? Or are there good comparisons?

Jach 15y ago

I have a friend who uses Arch, she likes it a lot. I've been a Gentoo user for a number of years. From my outside perspective, Arch is similar to Gentoo in terms of configurability and power but without the beefy install process and it has a mirror of pre-built binaries for packages (you can compile from source if you want) where Gentoo typically only keeps binaries around for big things like OpenOffice, browsers, and proprietary drivers. Arch definitely seems more Linuxy though in the heritage of Debian, whereas Gentoo seems to take a bunch of ideas from the BSD folk. One thing I love about Portage over pacman is the masking. Arch seems to take bleeding-edge a little less seriously.

imrehg 15y ago

So far the main difference I've seen: With Gentoo you have to compile everything yourself (as much as I can tell). With Arch, you _can_ compile everything yourself, but don't have to: official repos have packages precompiled, but the package source is there if you want something different.

albertzeyer 15y ago
On Gentoo, you can also use binary packages. You can setup some variable to some host which has all the binary packages for you. There are some public servers with x86 and amd64, although none are really official.

zeekay 15y ago

I'm not about to remove Gentoo from my older servers, but I'm probably never going to install it again. Not having to compile everything is a huge win. The Arch build system is fantastic. It's easier to create/maintain your own packages. Arch's packages seem to be of higher quality, and more frequently updated. I've found the last few months of using Arch to be completely delightful.

agravier 15y ago

I switched from Gentoo (4 years user) to Arch (now 4 years) and although the "close to the internals" philosophy are similar, which may make the two distros look the similar, the two are not comparable. Gentoo compiles from scratch by default, and is a real time sink in terms of maintainance. Gentoo is much more complex, I mean that for you as sysadmin of your own computer, the number of "free variables" to tune in gentoo is much greater than in Arch. Often, you end up over-optimizing your Gentoo box. In the end, more packages end up not working or not able to accept some input or plug-ins because of some compilation detail, for instance in my experience. However, Gentoo is closer to LFS. I learnt the details of manual configuration and compilation of the linux kernel thanks to Gentoo. I learnt initrc, set up the logging system I wanted, etc... What I learnt using Gentoo lets me sail through Arch administration with zero hassle. After fixing my Gentoo box numerous times, I understand the compromise that is made in Arch between power, simplicity of administration and time consumed doing real work. Arch maintains a "pro" feeling, does not try to hide the internals, while keeping a minimal number of "free variables" for you to tweak. Does that make Arch primitive? Maybe, and in that case, I like primitiveness inmy distros.