Gentoo vs any other distro

velox_vulnus , 6 hours ago

If you want a “special” distro, use something like GoboLinux, NixOS, Guix, ClearLinux, CachyOS or T2Linux. The rest of them are almost the same.

lord_ryvan , 6 hours ago

How are each of those special? And how are others, inc. Gentoo, almost the same?

velox_vulnus , 5 hours ago

Not falling for the debatebro bait. I’ve placed quotation marks around “special” for the same reason, stop putting your words in my mouth.

lord_ryvan , 5 hours ago

I did not mean it like that, at all.

You leave a comment saying these are special and all the others are more or less the same, but don’t explain how that’s the case.

I am genuinely asking.

exu , 4 hours ago

Different person, but I’ll try to explain some of what I know.

Traditional Linux:

• read/write root and usr
• only one version of a program can exist*
• packages are available immediately after install
• packages are imperative (you tell it what to do, it does that)
• files swapped in place (can lead to issues like kernel modules missing or Firefox not opening new tabs until restart)

*you might have python3.8 and python3.9, but those must be created as different packages using different paths in /usr

NixOS, Guix:

• declarative package management (basically config file and exactly these packages are installed)
• usr and parts of root read-only (afaik)
• packages symlinked to usr
• multiple versions of packages kept locally (though not all active necessarily)
• will keep using old package until restart/reboot, therefore not breaking on updates. New instances of a program can use the new package
• easy to roll back due to multiple versions kept

Immutable OS (haven’t seen one mentioned by OP, but it’s a category):

• often imperative package management
• using snapshots or multiple root partitions for easy rollbacks
• read-only root and usr
• packages might only be available after a reboot (depends on implementation and if system packages or something else like Flatpak, which doesn’t need a reboot, are used)

SerpentOS:

• experimental distro (ie stuff might change)
• imperative package manager
• packages installed to separate tree, but swapped live. Basically A/B root of an Immutable system that doesn’t require a reboot (according to the explaination in the latest blog post)

Not sure why ClearLinux is on that list of special distros and I don’t know half of the rest so yeah. Hope this explains some of it?

velox_vulnus , 2 hours ago

Apologies for being defensive, I accept that I am in the wrong here - I had to assume the worst owning to the silent-toxicity through down-votes, because they’ve assumed internally that I’ve called their favorite distro just the “same” as the distro that they probably hate.

A “traditional” Linux follows a FHS build, comes with a general package manager that is usually centralized, and can have one version of a program. You can only have one version of a particular program for the given OS version, and may have to use tools like venv or asdf to use older versions. Examples include Debian and Fedora, as well as it’s derivatives. These traditional distros come with profiles, or flavours, like KDE, GNOME, or some other desktop environment.

GoboLinux is the original Linux OS that deviated from the FHS layout. With this, now you could have multiple versions of the same applications alongside, without having conflicts. ClearLinux (from Intel) and CachyOS (independent) are distros that build optimized binaries. I’ve not delved much into either of them, but I would like to think that having a tuned distro is quite nice.

Henceforth here, most of the distros can be called as meta-distibutions. These are distros that are a little “flexible” when it comes to installing. There’s no pre-defined profiles and flavours, but this also means that you have control over what you can choose to install. Examples include Arch, Void, Gentoo and their derivatives.

Of these, Gentoo (back then - this does not hold true today) and Void are special in the sense that they came with the most barebone stuff, and you had to use their tooling to build Linux, as well as the entire desktop and application from scratch. I am not sure who the target audience might be, but I’m assuming that most probably this includes people who don’t trust repositories or substitute servers.

NixOS and Guix are functional, transactional and declarative distros that provides you with isolation via ephemeral shells - which can be either pure or impure, store-based file layout (hash, followed by package name and version) and the option to host containers and virtual machines within the OS as a neat in-built feature. Each time you “build”, you create your own distro generation, based on your own config, with the option to switch between them, without having to reboot. The store-based file layout was probably an inspiration from GoboLinux.

SerpentOS is a new experimental OS in development - from what I know, these folks have embraced memory-safe languages for their tools. Another cool features is that the packaging it is quite nice and uses the well-known YAML format, as an alternative to Arch’s PKGBUILD or Fedora’s spec. There’s a lot of experimental stuff that I am not following, but it also shares some features with immutable distros. T2 SDE (not T2Linux, my bad) is another such meta-distro that I am aware of, but I haven’t delved into it. It is being developed by Rene Rebe. There’s also other cool distros, like for example Bedrock Linux, or Slackware, but I don’t follow them a lot, so I can’t speak for them.

lord_ryvan , 5 hours ago

I did not mean it like that, at all.

You leave a comment saying these are special and all the others are more or less the same, but don’t explain how that’s the case.

I am genuinely asking.

lord_ryvan , 5 hours ago

I did not mean it like that, at all.

You leave a comment saying these are special and all the others are more or less the same, but don’t explain how that’s the case.

I am genuinely asking.

kylian0087 , 3 hours ago

Frankly i found the Gentoo handbook much easier to follow then the arch wiki at the time I tried both. Just compiling everything takes a while to do.

0x0 , 3 hours ago (edited 3 hours ago)

The installer is the handbook.

USE flags are freakin’ awesome.

It can let you install two different versions of a library.

You can install the binary versions of some big packages like firefox.

Edit: while USE flags are generic, you can also set specific per-package flags.

m4m4m4m4 , 6 hours ago

Apparently you can use the USE FLAGS to determine what stuff you want and it’s meant to be even more lean on resources.

True and false; the “something special” in Gentoo is that you can tailor it to fit to your needs, and as far as I know no other distro comes even close - maybe the now almost defuct Funtoo. The “it’s more lean on resources” always seemed to me like a strawman people don’t like it came up with to diss on Gentoo.

Ghoelian , 4 hours ago

The “it’s more lean on resources” always seemed to me like a strawman people don’t like it came up with to diss on Gentoo.

Wait but isn’t being more lean a good thing? Or am I misunderstanding how they’re using that word?

m4m4m4m4 , 4 hours ago

Of course it’s a good thing, but it’s not something Gentoo is particuarly goot at it (nor any distro, that is) but its detractors claim Gentoo says is “lean on resources” only to “debunk” that.

And the myth that is “supercomplicated”, but in the end the only “difficult” part is to install it - in the daily, pedestrian usage it’s pretty much like any other (rolling release) distro. Well, of course except package installation/update times, but it’s beyond to me why people created that false urgency of needing to have everything installed and updated the second you issued the command. It’s not like you won’t be able to use your computer at all while Portage does its thing.

nyan , 4 hours ago

There’s an old joke from a couple of decades ago about what operating systems would be like if they were airlines:

Linux Airlines

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”

Gentoo is still very much a “You had to do what with the seat?” distro, while most others have retired that concept to varying degrees, at the cost of the seats being less easy to perform unusual adjustments on.

Findmysec , 5 hours ago

Gentoo is the epitome of RTFM. It is beyond the Arch install in “complexity”.

maniacalmanicmania , 5 hours ago

You can get Gentoo up and running pretty quickly by following the handbook. From memory it’s easy to miss one or two clear instructions because the styling of the handbook can add more eye-catching weight to the explanation than the actual commands. So be sure to re-read areas where things don’t seem to working out.

Gentoo also has a binary repo if you don’t plan to stray from whatever installation profile defaults you start off with.

I can’t confirm a simple server install of Gentoo is somehow more lean than any other distribution.

I’ve used gentoo-install with success previously although I don’t know how up to date it is.

banazir , 6 hours ago

“Install Gentoo” is a meme, not life advice. With Gentoo, the installation process gives you good insight in to the internals of Linux systems and compiling (almost) everything from source is interesting, but won’t produce noticeable benefits for average users. Especially since updates take some time, what with compiling the programs again. Gentoo is a great distro with a fantastic package manager, but unless you’re an enthusiast or a serious hobbyist, Don’t Install Gentoo.

biokernel , 6 hours ago

Does Gentoo have something special that other distros do not?

Isn’t there a Gentoo installer like with Arch?

Nope. That’s the “something special”. You do it manually with the help of a very well written handbook and learn a great deal about how an os works. IMO a great experience.

bigboismith , 6 hours ago

Gentoo is basically arch but built around everything being compiled locally. There isn’t to my knowledge any “Gentoo-install”, but if you can manage to install arch manually it should be quite similar. Gentoo is a bit more complex than arch so if installing gentoo manually seems daunting I would recommend staying on arch.