Subj : Arch btw
To   : DaiTengu
From : Accession
Date : Wed Nov 26 2025 08:55:50

Hey DaiTengu!

On Wed, 26 Nov 2025 08:33:14 -0600, you wrote:

 > Gentoo does have binary packages for a lot of things now, including the
 > kernel. of course if you have unusual USE flags set, and if packages
 > support them it will still need to be compiled.

I noticed that. However, the way they go about it is kinda funky, but funky is the Gentoo way, I suppose.

Let's start out by saying this discussion finally convinced me to grab the minimal installation, throw it on my datastore, and fire up a VM with it. Now, mind you, this was with 2 virtual cores and 4gb ram (mistake #1). I started to follow along with the amd64 handbook (mistake #2), and realized that the handbook has been significantly changed over the years, so I had to pay attention as to not mess anything up.

Why are they (via the handbook) using examples with full written out options? For example, I used to use 'emerge -avuDN @world' (although, when I gave up on Gentoo years ago they were just making the changed to using '@', as 'world' and '@world' were two different meanings at the time. Now they recommend using 'emerge --ask --verbose --update --deep --newuse @world'? That's annoying.

Anyway, by the time I setup the network, partitioned the drive, etc. then chrooted into the environment, I was already an hour in, and started inching my foot out the door. Right before 'configuring the kernel', I was tasked with updating @world, and had only 13 packages to update. This took 20+ minutes. It was 1:30am and I had enough. Deleted the VM, removed the iso from the datastore, and went to sleep. ;)

 > I've always wanted to toss Gentoo on one of the boxes we have at work,
 > just to see how fast things will build. They're dual CPU, 64 core AMD
 > EPYCs with at least 512GB RAM and u.2 nvme drives, so I'd be able to
 > compile with 256 threads at once. :D

That's crazy. Also crazy how much a single unit of something like that costs. Here us little homelabbers try to keep the budget tight, but damn. $20k+ for something like that is nuts!

 > Honestly, the main reason I use Gentoo to this day is that It's an
 > up-to-date distro that I'm familiar with.  I don't know Arch's package
 > manager, I have an irrational, seething hatred for Ubuntu (and Debian by
 > association), I've forgotten more things about SuSE than I ever knew so
 > I might as well be starting over there, and Slackware just feels ancient
 > and clunky.

Ask Tiny about Arch's package manager that he has hated and misunderstood all these years, until he finally tried it out. It's similar to yum or apt, once you figure out the options, etc.

Other than that, I agree with the other statements here, except I wouldn't so much call it a 'seeting hatred', but maybe just a fond dislike.

 > Finally, we run Red Hat based distros at work. I'm intimately familiar
 > with Fedora/Redhat/CentOS/Rocky/Alma/etc, but let's be fair: even
 > Fedora's packages are "old" compared to Arch & Gentoo. the RHEL family
 > of distros is made for stability, which doesn't mesh well with "bleeding
 > edge".

Yep. Same goes for the Debian family of distros. They must just pick a kernel and packages to just stop dead in their tracks on and just choose to maintain those, which is where the LTS and whatnot applies. Honestly, I can say as long as I've been on "bleeding edge", I have had absolutely no stability issues. 

Regards,
Nick

.... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
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