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Wow...I feel weird. A lot of the comments are saying that they tried Gentoo or used to use it. And here I am, using it as my daily driver and server workhorse

Wow...I feel weird. A lot of the comments are saying that they tried Gentoo or used to use it. And here I am, using it as my daily driver and server workhorse. I wonder what makes me different such that Gentoo is the best for me. And I am not going to enable binary packages.

nubinetwork 3y ago
> And here I am, using it as my daily driver and server workhorse. I wonder what makes me different such that Gentoo is the best for me. Persistence like a Saint? Hard to say. I've been using it for 20 years too.
the_af 3y ago
> I wonder what makes me different such that Gentoo is the best for me. Ok, I'll bite: why is Gentoo best for you? (I'm not going to try to refute any of your statements should you reply, I promise. I'm genuinely curious.) I'll offer my own experience why Gentoo is not for me: I don't run my own server, and at work I use servers in the cloud (Ubuntu based, I guess? Or AWS-flavored). No compiling any kernels or whatnot. For the desktop, a friend convinced me to try Gentoo 10+ years ago ("it's compiled for your specific hardware, it'll be faster!"), I gave it a try, wasted lots of time getting it running, then saw it wasn't really noticeably faster for any task I did than regular Ubuntu, and took longer to get set up. So I ditched it. Another common claim I found to be false (in my case): "I learned so much configuring Gentoo!". Well, no. I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else, setting flags and touching config files I didn't really understand, so I can safely say I learned nothing -- I just went through the motions. But that's just my experience.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  That's what is weird; I don't know why it's better for me! I can understand that you didn't learn anything from installing Gentoo. I did, but in my case, I was not like most new Linux users; instead of immediately trying to learn the details when I started, I just wanted to install Ubuntu and get working. It was only six years later that I installed Arch, then Linux from Scratch, then Gentoo, and in the process, I had many lightbulbs trigger. "Oh, that's why it's like that!" As much as I love Gentoo, I agree with you: the "faster" argument is a myth. I hope you can tell I'm not trying to evangelize. :) You said you weren't going to refute that Gentoo is best for me; well, I'll go the other way and not refute that Gentoo is really bad for nearly everybody! Anyway, I'll take a stab at why Gentoo is best for me: extreme customization. See, there's another way I'm not like most people; others start out with extreme customization and ricing, and they back off of it over time. I started with little and have only grown my customization over time. Maybe it's because I'm on the spectrum, but computers are annoying to use for me by default. On Gentoo, however, I can make my setup fit me more than any other distro. Another thing that might contribute is that I like lean setups. Just checked with `ps --ppid 2 -p 2 --deselect | wc -l`, and subtracting the terminal, shell, ps, and wc, there were only 30 processes. And that includes niceties like redshift and picom. Because I do heavy fuzzing, that matters to me. Also, it is responsive; slow responses bother me more than they do others. But to be clear, that doesn't refute your experience that Gentoo isn't faster; it took a lot of work to get Gentoo to this point, and it isn't default. So I am weird.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    People obsess over the compiler flags (and there was a short time when everything else seemed to be x86-32bit and Gentoo was one of the very few distros where you could compile everything for amd64) but the real advantage of Portage is the USE flags; where you can turn off major things like X support, or disable IPv4 entirely, etc. Nothing else I've ever encountered allows that customizability. And that's been much more important to me than cflags, which I set once and ignore, ever since trying to install a command-line MP3 player on an ancient RedHat brought in an entire X install.
    - gavinhoward 3y ago
      Yes, I agree with this. I have used USE flags immensely.
- goku12 3y ago
  Not the same person you're replying to. But I have some ideas to share. > Another common claim I found to be false (in my case): "I learned so much configuring Gentoo!" This isn't true for everyone. My general plan with anything is to follow the script exactly at the beginning. If that works out, start making incremental changes until something breaks or until you're satisfied. Gentoo taught me a lot of things that way - especially the kernel compilation (which is important to me anyway, due to my profession). Before this, it was Arch. And a regular Linux distro before that. All of them taught me something with the same strategy during the initial phase. Eventually the struggle gives way to familiarity and learning rate starts to fade. > Well, no. I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else, setting flags and touching config files I didn't really understand I don't know about anyone else, but Gentoo config files were the easiest for me to understand. I feel very much in control with them. The Gentoo wiki doesn't just give you recipes - they always tell you the exact reason for a configuration or flag (This is true for Arch as well). I have also created packages for myself - so I have a reasonable understanding of USE flags. I've been thinking about migrating away from Gentoo - but I like USE flags so much. Sometimes they allow you to access application features that are not available on other distros (because they have to choose build flags that suit the majority). Something that helps me with this level of control over the configuration is that I maintain them as literate org-mode files with explanations and even diagrams at times. This might seem like too much work for a desktop system. And often that is true. But this workflow suits my interests and profession really well. In fact, at least 3 custom programs are part of my desktop - configuring Gentoo to my liking is the least difficult part in it. > Ok, I'll bite: why is Gentoo best for you? Finally. I said this in another comment. The most attractive part of Gentoo for me isn't the custom compiled kernel or software (I use flatpaks for most desktop apps). It's the package management system. Portage is by far the best system I've experienced for creating system packages.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I use Gentoo on my personal servers because it offers the customization I want with the ability to easily install from source some various strange things I have laying around. It's a rolling release so it never has a "major blow up day" - at worst I have to spend 5-10 minutes on a "breaking" change. My desktop is just a Mac, but my Gentoo server provides the Linux I need. (Work servers are Ubuntu because work software wants something well-known.)
- akira2501 3y ago
  > why is Gentoo best for you? It has zero opinions about how my system should be configured or what options the installed software should have. It lets me build precisely what I want to build without any hassle or compromise. > I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else The thing I really like about gentoo is I have a virtual/akira package. It brings up any system precisely the way I want it. If I have a new system I can just install that virtual from my overlay repo and be in business within a few minutes. I wrote this virtual 10 years ago. It still works perfectly. Ironically, I guess I could say, I choose gentoo because I want to spend _less_ time managing my system, and it enables that in a way that no other distribution has for me ever.
connorgutman 3y ago
You’re not alone! I run Gentoo on all my devices. GPD Win 4, Pixelbook with coreboot, my NAS, and a VPS. Why (IMO)? 1. Best documentation I have ever used. 2. Infinite amount of customization. Your system can be as minimalist or maximalist as you’d like. 3. Portage overlays > AUR any day of the week. 4. Choose your own init system. Want SystemD? Fine. Want OpenRC? Go right ahead! 5. It’s hard to understate the power of a good community with well-described values. I feel safe and at home with Gentoo because I know that it will always value the #1 thing I care about on Linux: freedom. Gentoo is like a choose your own adventure. Want to run SystemD + Gnome + PulseAudio + binary packages? You can do that. Want to run OpenRC + Hyprland + Pipewire + NetworkManager instead of netifrc? Go for it! Gentoo isn’t about compiling everything, it’s about choosing everything. Today’s announcement (although irrelevant to me) gives users more choices.
BeetleB 3y ago
20+ years for me: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2023/May/20-years-of-gentoo/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2023/May/20-years-of-gentoo/
aidenn0 3y ago
I would still be using Gentoo if NixOS hadn't come around. I like Gentoo just fine, but being a sysadmin for NixOS is much easier than being a sysadmin for Gentoo.
juped 3y ago
Extensive binary packages would have been nice back in the years when Gentoo was a meme OS; CPUs were a lot slower and not multicore. I don't have a use for them now. Anyway, the best OS is the one you already know how to use.
theamk 3y ago
Do you have machines which "just work"? Not a daily driver machine or server that you mess with every week, but something you set up long time ago and that has been working even since. Something that you may only log in few timers per year, if that. I stopped using Gentoo when I got my made my first "production" system: I made it, people started using it, and it was "done" - as in, there were no more any reasons to log into it daily, or even weekly. I'd still want my security updates and very very rarely there would be a new feature that required new package, but otherwise I wanted system to be steady. And Gentoo is a horrible fit for this usecase - even on my personal desktop where I updated weekly I had emerge build failures practically every time; and a system which might not be updated for months would be even worse. So I went to Debian, and it was good (especially with unattended upgrades), and I eventually switched all my machines to it. If you use Gentoo, do you have any machines that you don't tinker with weekly? How often do you update them, and how often do you need manual intervention to finish the update?
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  I use mine daily and update them about weekly, yes. Leaving a Gentoo system is, as you say, not something you should do. I'm lucky that I don't have that.
  - theamk 3y ago
    Well, here is your answer why so few people use gentoo. I can count at least 6 linux computers in my household (this includes stuff like work laptop(s), fileserver, my family member's PCs, and that raspberry pi which only acts as a camera server for my 3D printer). And the life is just easier if all of them run the same, or at least very similar, systems.
    - gavinhoward 3y ago
      Oh, I know people don't, and shouldn't, use Gentoo. What's weird to me is that it works for me. And it's weird because I see how Gentoo is just not a good fit for most things, so fitting it feels weird.
- 3y ago

nubinetwork 3y ago

> And here I am, using it as my daily driver and server workhorse. I wonder what makes me different such that Gentoo is the best for me. Persistence like a Saint? Hard to say. I've been using it for 20 years too.

the_af 3y ago

> I wonder what makes me different such that Gentoo is the best for me. Ok, I'll bite: why is Gentoo best for you? (I'm not going to try to refute any of your statements should you reply, I promise. I'm genuinely curious.) I'll offer my own experience why Gentoo is not for me: I don't run my own server, and at work I use servers in the cloud (Ubuntu based, I guess? Or AWS-flavored). No compiling any kernels or whatnot. For the desktop, a friend convinced me to try Gentoo 10+ years ago ("it's compiled for your specific hardware, it'll be faster!"), I gave it a try, wasted lots of time getting it running, then saw it wasn't really noticeably faster for any task I did than regular Ubuntu, and took longer to get set up. So I ditched it. Another common claim I found to be false (in my case): "I learned so much configuring Gentoo!". Well, no. I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else, setting flags and touching config files I didn't really understand, so I can safely say I learned nothing -- I just went through the motions. But that's just my experience.

gavinhoward 3y ago
That's what is weird; I don't know why it's better for me! I can understand that you didn't learn anything from installing Gentoo. I did, but in my case, I was not like most new Linux users; instead of immediately trying to learn the details when I started, I just wanted to install Ubuntu and get working. It was only six years later that I installed Arch, then Linux from Scratch, then Gentoo, and in the process, I had many lightbulbs trigger. "Oh, that's why it's like that!" As much as I love Gentoo, I agree with you: the "faster" argument is a myth. I hope you can tell I'm not trying to evangelize. :) You said you weren't going to refute that Gentoo is best for me; well, I'll go the other way and not refute that Gentoo is really bad for nearly everybody! Anyway, I'll take a stab at why Gentoo is best for me: extreme customization. See, there's another way I'm not like most people; others start out with extreme customization and ricing, and they back off of it over time. I started with little and have only grown my customization over time. Maybe it's because I'm on the spectrum, but computers are annoying to use for me by default. On Gentoo, however, I can make my setup fit me more than any other distro. Another thing that might contribute is that I like lean setups. Just checked with `ps --ppid 2 -p 2 --deselect | wc -l`, and subtracting the terminal, shell, ps, and wc, there were only 30 processes. And that includes niceties like redshift and picom. Because I do heavy fuzzing, that matters to me. Also, it is responsive; slow responses bother me more than they do others. But to be clear, that doesn't refute your experience that Gentoo isn't faster; it took a lot of work to get Gentoo to this point, and it isn't default. So I am weird.
- bombcar 3y ago
  People obsess over the compiler flags (and there was a short time when everything else seemed to be x86-32bit and Gentoo was one of the very few distros where you could compile everything for amd64) but the real advantage of Portage is the USE flags; where you can turn off major things like X support, or disable IPv4 entirely, etc. Nothing else I've ever encountered allows that customizability. And that's been much more important to me than cflags, which I set once and ignore, ever since trying to install a command-line MP3 player on an ancient RedHat brought in an entire X install.
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    Yes, I agree with this. I have used USE flags immensely.
goku12 3y ago
Not the same person you're replying to. But I have some ideas to share. > Another common claim I found to be false (in my case): "I learned so much configuring Gentoo!" This isn't true for everyone. My general plan with anything is to follow the script exactly at the beginning. If that works out, start making incremental changes until something breaks or until you're satisfied. Gentoo taught me a lot of things that way - especially the kernel compilation (which is important to me anyway, due to my profession). Before this, it was Arch. And a regular Linux distro before that. All of them taught me something with the same strategy during the initial phase. Eventually the struggle gives way to familiarity and learning rate starts to fade. > Well, no. I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else, setting flags and touching config files I didn't really understand I don't know about anyone else, but Gentoo config files were the easiest for me to understand. I feel very much in control with them. The Gentoo wiki doesn't just give you recipes - they always tell you the exact reason for a configuration or flag (This is true for Arch as well). I have also created packages for myself - so I have a reasonable understanding of USE flags. I've been thinking about migrating away from Gentoo - but I like USE flags so much. Sometimes they allow you to access application features that are not available on other distros (because they have to choose build flags that suit the majority). Something that helps me with this level of control over the configuration is that I maintain them as literate org-mode files with explanations and even diagrams at times. This might seem like too much work for a desktop system. And often that is true. But this workflow suits my interests and profession really well. In fact, at least 3 custom programs are part of my desktop - configuring Gentoo to my liking is the least difficult part in it. > Ok, I'll bite: why is Gentoo best for you? Finally. I said this in another comment. The most attractive part of Gentoo for me isn't the custom compiled kernel or software (I use flatpaks for most desktop apps). It's the package management system. Portage is by far the best system I've experienced for creating system packages.
bombcar 3y ago
I use Gentoo on my personal servers because it offers the customization I want with the ability to easily install from source some various strange things I have laying around. It's a rolling release so it never has a "major blow up day" - at worst I have to spend 5-10 minutes on a "breaking" change. My desktop is just a Mac, but my Gentoo server provides the Linux I need. (Work servers are Ubuntu because work software wants something well-known.)
akira2501 3y ago
> why is Gentoo best for you? It has zero opinions about how my system should be configured or what options the installed software should have. It lets me build precisely what I want to build without any hassle or compromise. > I mostly followed the recipes like almost everybody else The thing I really like about gentoo is I have a virtual/akira package. It brings up any system precisely the way I want it. If I have a new system I can just install that virtual from my overlay repo and be in business within a few minutes. I wrote this virtual 10 years ago. It still works perfectly. Ironically, I guess I could say, I choose gentoo because I want to spend _less_ time managing my system, and it enables that in a way that no other distribution has for me ever.

connorgutman 3y ago

You’re not alone! I run Gentoo on all my devices. GPD Win 4, Pixelbook with coreboot, my NAS, and a VPS. Why (IMO)? 1. Best documentation I have ever used. 2. Infinite amount of customization. Your system can be as minimalist or maximalist as you’d like. 3. Portage overlays > AUR any day of the week. 4. Choose your own init system. Want SystemD? Fine. Want OpenRC? Go right ahead! 5. It’s hard to understate the power of a good community with well-described values. I feel safe and at home with Gentoo because I know that it will always value the #1 thing I care about on Linux: freedom. Gentoo is like a choose your own adventure. Want to run SystemD + Gnome + PulseAudio + binary packages? You can do that. Want to run OpenRC + Hyprland + Pipewire + NetworkManager instead of netifrc? Go for it! Gentoo isn’t about compiling everything, it’s about choosing everything. Today’s announcement (although irrelevant to me) gives users more choices.

BeetleB 3y ago

20+ years for me: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2023/May/20-years-of-gentoo/ https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2023/May/20-years-of-gentoo/

aidenn0 3y ago

I would still be using Gentoo if NixOS hadn't come around. I like Gentoo just fine, but being a sysadmin for NixOS is much easier than being a sysadmin for Gentoo.

juped 3y ago

Extensive binary packages would have been nice back in the years when Gentoo was a meme OS; CPUs were a lot slower and not multicore. I don't have a use for them now. Anyway, the best OS is the one you already know how to use.

theamk 3y ago

Do you have machines which "just work"? Not a daily driver machine or server that you mess with every week, but something you set up long time ago and that has been working even since. Something that you may only log in few timers per year, if that. I stopped using Gentoo when I got my made my first "production" system: I made it, people started using it, and it was "done" - as in, there were no more any reasons to log into it daily, or even weekly. I'd still want my security updates and very very rarely there would be a new feature that required new package, but otherwise I wanted system to be steady. And Gentoo is a horrible fit for this usecase - even on my personal desktop where I updated weekly I had emerge build failures practically every time; and a system which might not be updated for months would be even worse. So I went to Debian, and it was good (especially with unattended upgrades), and I eventually switched all my machines to it. If you use Gentoo, do you have any machines that you don't tinker with weekly? How often do you update them, and how often do you need manual intervention to finish the update?

gavinhoward 3y ago
I use mine daily and update them about weekly, yes. Leaving a Gentoo system is, as you say, not something you should do. I'm lucky that I don't have that.
- theamk 3y ago
  Well, here is your answer why so few people use gentoo. I can count at least 6 linux computers in my household (this includes stuff like work laptop(s), fileserver, my family member's PCs, and that raspberry pi which only acts as a camera server for my 3D printer). And the life is just easier if all of them run the same, or at least very similar, systems.
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    Oh, I know people don't, and shouldn't, use Gentoo. What's weird to me is that it works for me. And it's weird because I see how Gentoo is just not a good fit for most things, so fitting it feels weird.
3y ago