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Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

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Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#181

Post by techcode »

M95D wrote: post #92
flipped wrote: post #12

How easy is it to administer gentoo servers? Is it on-par with nix/arch or harder?

TLDR: Installation is a pain, initial configuration is a pain and there's always something more to tweak, update is a lesser pain, but still a pain. But it's fun, BDSM-style... Installation is done by booting a liveCD, manually partitioning your storage, unpacking a Gentoo STAGE3 archive, chrooting in it, doing basic configuration such as network, timezone, portage (package manager) base profile and servers, etc., co…

Download image from https://www.calculate-linux.org/ - put it on USB flashdrive.

And it's literally yes, yes, next, next - the defaults are pretty good.

1) Calculate Linux is 100% Gentoo with more profiles (e.g. server, desktop-kde, desktop-gnome ...etc) and after switching from vanilla Gentoo to Calculate - I didn't need to tweak any use flags of any packages.

Profiles are so good that everything works nicely together

2) There are prebuild binaries for your profile use-flag combo - can't recall last time I had to wait for something to compile

3) Much less likely to happen since you get binaries for everything - but there's additional cl-xxx tooling that makes even that easier

4) I don't think that's a bad thing. Though sure I could agree that having option to automatically restart services would be nice.

5) Yes - and you can also archive and basically have git-log on conf changes.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#182

Post by malwrar »

pjmlp wrote: post #175
malwrar wrote: post #57

Gentoo is the best! Once you get the hang of creating a bootable system and feel comfortable painting outside the lines, it feels like Linux from Scratch just without needing to manually build everything. I automated building system images with just podman (to build the rootfs) and qemu (test boot & write the rootfs, foreign arch emulation) and basically just build new system images once a week w/ CI for all my hardw…

After driving Gentoo for a while back in 2004, I decided I don't really want to wait compiling for everything.

That’s mostly why I build system images in CI; my slowest builds (qemu user mode emulation of aarch64 for e.g. raspberry pi boards) can take multiple days so I just declared myself a 1 week window between updates and then just pull in the changes via rsync. I even boot the images with qemu as part of the testing cycle. At some point I might try building and hosting prebuilt bins like gentoo does now, I don’t use those though because I explicitly want to build everything from source.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#183

Post by jayofdoom »

M95D wrote: post #170
jayofdoom wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always tell people this: With Red Hat, Anaconda is the installer. With Ubuntu, ubiquity. etc ... With Gentoo -- YOU are the installer. This means you have to be ready to perform -- more or less manually -- many of the tasks automated in other distributions. I sorta see this as the same as a tutorial level in a video game: you learn how to read and follow the wiki which is essentially the key to success in Gentoo.

No, I don't agree. That would be Slackware. I guess you never used that one before... It doesn't even do dependency management. Portage/emerge is very much automated and once you set it up it runs updates with just a confirmation, unless you feel the need to tweak something.

Slackware has no package manager or installer. It's just an extra step removed.

I didn't say Gentoo has no package manager (it does; and it's great!)

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#185

Post by DASD »

malwrar wrote: post #171
scorpioxy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage you to write about it as well. It seems interesting and unconventional. I used to tinker a lot with my systems but as I gotten older and my time became more limited, I've abandoned a lot of it and now favor "getting things done". Though I still tinker a lot with my systems and have my workflow and system setup, it is no longer at the level of re-compiling the kernel with my specific optimization sor…

> It feels like containerfiles are an easier approach but they(at least docker does) sort of feel designed around describing application environments as opposed to full system environments. They absolutely are! I actually originally just wanted a base container image for running services on my hosts that a.) I could produce a full source code listing for and b.) have full visibility over the BoM, and realized I could…

Thanks for sharing! Definitely interested in reading further about the project.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#186

Post by CursedSilicon »

Thaxll wrote: post #104
CursedSilicon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gentoo's Portage build system is (or at least was?) part of Google's ChromeOS Gentoo also runs the backend infra of Sony's Playstation Cloud gaming service Anecdotal evidence claims it used to also run the NASDAq

Highly unlikely that PSN runs Gentoo. They're using AWS.

Not PSN. Sony's Cloud Gaming service. Where they stream an entire PlayStation console to you

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#187

Post by smeeagain2 »

reppap wrote: post #120
cardanome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red Hat pushing for the disaster that is Wayland has set the Linux Desktop back decades. It is the Microsoft of the Linux world.

I'm sorry but this is just completely disconnected from reality. Wayland is being successfully used every single day. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's inherently bad.

[dead]

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#188

Post by smeeagain2 »

NERD_ALERT wrote: post #121
cardanome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red Hat pushing for the disaster that is Wayland has set the Linux Desktop back decades. It is the Microsoft of the Linux world.

Why is Wayland a disaster? Most of the Linux community is strongly in favor of it.

[flagged]

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#189

Post by reppap »

smeeagain2 wrote: post #187
reppap wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this is just completely disconnected from reality. Wayland is being successfully used every single day. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's inherently bad.

[dead]

And that's fine! No one cares! Keep using it!
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