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

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Is Gentoo a waste of time?