4 ms·

The thing is, that was 20 years ago. I basically did the same thing, at almost the same time, as you. But computing power is much higher now. The same compilat

by oblio 3y ago

The thing is, that was 20 years ago. I basically did the same thing, at almost the same time, as you. But computing power is much higher now. The same compilation now would probably take 1-2 hours, max. Updates would be super fast. Gentoo itself is considered generally stable and a pretty solid distribution, or it used to be. I wonder if these days the flexibility and the engineering behind Gentoo might be worth taking another go at it.

pjmlp 3y ago
Even 1-2 hours is too much for me. I rather use programming languages ecosystems that favour binary libraries for a reason.
- II2II 3y ago
  A lot of the reason depends upon what you hope to get from the labour and the overall environment that you are working within. I was working with a 486 around 1995. Compiling your own software was the norm and compiling your own kernel could have significant performance benefits (even if it was just to conserve the limited memory supported by machines of the day, to head off some of the swapping). By the time I learned of Gentoo, that was not really the case: most of the software one could obtain was provided in binary form and compiler optimizations were much less relevant (unless you had a special workload). The tooling provided is important too. I was using NetBSD for a while. For the most part you just started the compilation process and walked away until it was done. (I imagine Portage is similar.) You didn't get the instant gratification, but it was not time intensive in the sense that you had to attend to the process. That was very much unlike my earlier experiences in compiling software for Linux, stuff that isn't in the repos, since it did have to be attended to.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It surely wasn't the norm for me, in 1995's Summer, I got my first Linux distribution via Slackware 2.0, everything was already compiled and when chosing to download tarballs I would rather pick already compiled ones. Later on, to take advantage of my Pentium based computer, I would get Mandrake, with its i585 optimized packages. Most of my Linux based software would be sourced via Linux magazines CD-ROMs, or Walnut Creek CD-ROM collections.
cogman10 3y ago
For kicks and giggles, I just set it up on a new system a couple of weeks back. It's really not much different than working with Arch in terms of complexity. Initial setup takes a bit, but if you've installed arch you are pretty familiar with everything you need (in fact, arch docs are helpful for a gentoo setup :D). The docs are VERY good and easy to google. Compilation time can be nasty depending on what you install but not terribly bad. I just rebuilt the world because a GCC update broke lto that I'm running. With about 2k packages that took about 6 hours to complete on a Ryzen 7950. General updates take almost no time at all (especially using git for syncing). Usually less than 10 minutes often less than 1. As I write this, I'm currently rebuilding kde (if you are using your computer, rebuilding doesn't really get in the way. Especially if you are already working with a multicore system).
massysett 3y ago
“But computing power is much higher now. The same compilation now would probably take 1-2 hours, max. Updates would be super fast.” I’m not so sure. A lot of the power comes from multiple cores. Years ago I had one core, now I have eight. A lot of the compiles don’t use all the cores. Software has also gotten bigger. rustc is huge, for example. It didn’t even exist when I used Gentoo years ago. These days I’m on the Mac and I just switched to Homebrew after using Macports for years. It was for one of the same reasons I stopped using Gentoo: compiling takes too long. Whenever I upgraded Mac OS versions, Macports required me to recompile everything. This was no problem at all for, say, tree. But something was pulling in gcc (emacs needed it for some reason??) and this took ages to compile. At least Macports worked though. When I used Gentoo, it took so long to compile things that I would leave it overnight, and of course often in the morning I would see that the compilation stopped halfway through because something was broken. Hopefully that’s improved. Or of course maybe the binary packages will help with this. But if I wanted a build-your-own, rolling-release binary system, I don’t see why I wouldn’t just use Arch.

by oblio 3y ago

pjmlp 3y ago

Even 1-2 hours is too much for me. I rather use programming languages ecosystems that favour binary libraries for a reason.

II2II 3y ago
A lot of the reason depends upon what you hope to get from the labour and the overall environment that you are working within. I was working with a 486 around 1995. Compiling your own software was the norm and compiling your own kernel could have significant performance benefits (even if it was just to conserve the limited memory supported by machines of the day, to head off some of the swapping). By the time I learned of Gentoo, that was not really the case: most of the software one could obtain was provided in binary form and compiler optimizations were much less relevant (unless you had a special workload). The tooling provided is important too. I was using NetBSD for a while. For the most part you just started the compilation process and walked away until it was done. (I imagine Portage is similar.) You didn't get the instant gratification, but it was not time intensive in the sense that you had to attend to the process. That was very much unlike my earlier experiences in compiling software for Linux, stuff that isn't in the repos, since it did have to be attended to.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It surely wasn't the norm for me, in 1995's Summer, I got my first Linux distribution via Slackware 2.0, everything was already compiled and when chosing to download tarballs I would rather pick already compiled ones. Later on, to take advantage of my Pentium based computer, I would get Mandrake, with its i585 optimized packages. Most of my Linux based software would be sourced via Linux magazines CD-ROMs, or Walnut Creek CD-ROM collections.

cogman10 3y ago

For kicks and giggles, I just set it up on a new system a couple of weeks back. It's really not much different than working with Arch in terms of complexity. Initial setup takes a bit, but if you've installed arch you are pretty familiar with everything you need (in fact, arch docs are helpful for a gentoo setup :D). The docs are VERY good and easy to google. Compilation time can be nasty depending on what you install but not terribly bad. I just rebuilt the world because a GCC update broke lto that I'm running. With about 2k packages that took about 6 hours to complete on a Ryzen 7950. General updates take almost no time at all (especially using git for syncing). Usually less than 10 minutes often less than 1. As I write this, I'm currently rebuilding kde (if you are using your computer, rebuilding doesn't really get in the way. Especially if you are already working with a multicore system).

massysett 3y ago

“But computing power is much higher now. The same compilation now would probably take 1-2 hours, max. Updates would be super fast.” I’m not so sure. A lot of the power comes from multiple cores. Years ago I had one core, now I have eight. A lot of the compiles don’t use all the cores. Software has also gotten bigger. rustc is huge, for example. It didn’t even exist when I used Gentoo years ago. These days I’m on the Mac and I just switched to Homebrew after using Macports for years. It was for one of the same reasons I stopped using Gentoo: compiling takes too long. Whenever I upgraded Mac OS versions, Macports required me to recompile everything. This was no problem at all for, say, tree. But something was pulling in gcc (emacs needed it for some reason??) and this took ages to compile. At least Macports worked though. When I used Gentoo, it took so long to compile things that I would leave it overnight, and of course often in the morning I would see that the compilation stopped halfway through because something was broken. Hopefully that’s improved. Or of course maybe the binary packages will help with this. But if I wanted a build-your-own, rolling-release binary system, I don’t see why I wouldn’t just use Arch.