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articles/Is Gentoo a waste of time.md
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I can't believe I've had a blog for as long as I have, and still haven't
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talked about Gentoo. So here goes.
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A few days ago I uploaded a video where I showed off Geometry Dash running
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on Gentoo Linux with a tiling window manager. The result of course is that
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a window that you normally cannot freely resize can be resized to any size
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you want. On that video I got a few comments asking me about Gentoo though,
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and whether it's worth it or not, so today I want to talk about it.
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## What is a source based distribution?
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First of all, most GNU/Linux distros are binary based, meaning they have a
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package manager that connects to a server hosting prebuilt binaries of
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the requested software. Arch, Debian, Fedora, Void are all examples of
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distros that distribute their packages primarily using prebuilt binaries.
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On the other hand, source based distros have a package manager that (usually)
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connects to a server, downloads the source code directly from the developer
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and compiles it on the user's machine automatically. As you might imagine,
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this approach means installing programs will take a lot longer, but it
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comes with several benefits
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## Why use a source based distro then?
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The most obvious benefit is that when you compile it yourself, you can
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alter the way the package is compiled to fit specifically your computer.
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Package maintainers don't have the time to compile packages for every
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possible computer out there, that's just unreasonable. But when you compile
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your own packages, you only need to support *your* computer, or the
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computer you're building packages for. This comes with benefits such as:
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- Faster and smaller binaries
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- Better battery life
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In the case of Gentoo for instance, you can set USE flags for packages which
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essentially means you can disable features you do not use. This contributes
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to what I mentioned above.
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Using a source based distro like Gentoo also makes you a better GNU/Linux
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user. Some distros like Arch Linux don't ship a lot of packages by default,
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but do have wrapper scripts and MANY meta packages, so in the end you don't
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learn as much as you would if you manually installed everything.
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For instance, If you install Gentoo, and you use a custom kernel configuration,
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learn USE flags and compiler optimization, you're going to learn more
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about the kernel, you're going to learn how a GNU/Linux system works
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and how one is built, how compilers and compiler flags work, and so on.
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Learning is never a bad thing, so why wouldn't you want to learn about your
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distro while you're using it?
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I should also note that Gentoo in particular has BOTH Debian like stable
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packaging and the bleeding-edge Arch packages. In fact, Gentoo has even
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newer packages than Arch because you can compile straight from Git. If
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you are a developer, I'm sure you can see how this is incredibly useful.
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The best part though, is how you can install any specific version (provided
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the ebuild is available) so if you want to have stable packaging but the latest
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version of a specific program, you can do that.
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## Alright, but what about compile times?
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Many new Gentoo users get scared away by people on the Gentoo forums or
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other places telling them that compile times are long and it's going to take
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several days to get up and running. This is not true for most people.
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A decade ago when we had much older hardware compile times could be a problem
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and installing a simple program could take hours if not days. Most people
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have modern multithreaded processors now and a lot of RAM, so compiling
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programs really will not take that long. I'd say, if you have an 8 thread
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processor and 16 gigabytes of RAM or more, you should have no problems
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running Gentoo and compiling programs quickly. You can always do it with
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less, but the more threads and RAM you have the quicker you're going to
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compile programs.
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When you're using Gentoo, you're natually going to move from bloated software
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to more minimal software, because of the aforementioned compile times.
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So it changes you in a good way and keeps your minimalism in check.
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Even if you're using GNOME and bloated programs, it's not going to be that
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bad. It's also worth noting that although I'm not a fan of Flatpaks, they're
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certainly an option on Gentoo, and may prove useful if some packages are
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broken or you don't want to compile some packages.
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There are some packages that will take a long time to compile even on
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high-end hardware. Programs such as Clang, Chromium, Electron, Rust,
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among others. But for these there are often binaries available, and
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when there aren't any, you can often find binary packages on overlays
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(repositories operated by Gentoo users).
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## Should you use Gentoo?
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It depends, but Gentoo can work for (almost) everyone, provided the compile
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times are tolerable. Gentoo is great if you want to optimize your system
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and get every last performance out of it. Gentoo is also great if you want
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the absolute latest packages. Gentoo is great if you want the most stable
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system, in fact KickassTorrents was run on Gentoo Linux servers. Gentoo is
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great for minimalists, because of all its USE flags and options. Gentoo is
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great as a learning tool, too. In my opinion, it is as close as you can
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get to a perfect GNU/Linux distro, if you overlook the compile times.
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That's it for today, have a good day!
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Is Gentoo a waste of time?
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