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Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

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Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#151

Post by SSLy »

chungy wrote: post #132
Fiveplus wrote: post #9

For me, the most underrated takeaway here is the state of RISC-V support. While other distributions are struggling to bootstrap their package repositories for new ISAs and waiting for build farms to catch up, Gentoo's source based nature makes it architecture agnostic by definition. I applaud the risque team for having achieved parity with amd64 for the @system set. This proves that the meta-distribution model is the…

Fedora and Debian have been shipping RISC-V versions of stable releases for a while. I don't think anyone is really struggling.

arch is, but arch also has some woes making even amd64_v3/v4 builds, arm64 aside.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#153

Post by samuelbrian »

raphinou wrote: post #64
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…

Did you document this somewhere? I'm interested to know more

Not what was mentioned by parent but I've been working on an embedded Linux build system that uses rootfs from container images: https://makrocosm.github.io/makrocosm/

The example project uses Alpine base container images, but I'm using a Debian base container for something else I'm working on.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#154

Post by solaris2007 »

shevy-java wrote: post #35

Gentoo has many smart people. Having said that, I can't help but feel that ever since the rise of Arch, Gentoo lost a lot of grounds. This may not be primarily due to Arch, but it kind of felt that way to me. I feel that the Gentoo devs should really look at its main competitors such as Void or Arch, IMO. These seem to be more like a modern Gentoo, even if they are different and have a different focus too.

" There is just one branch that all Arch users use"

  https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2024/08/20/gentoo-profiles-and-keywords-rather-than-releases/

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#155

Post by jayofdoom »

raphinou wrote: post #64
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…

Did you document this somewhere? I'm interested to know more

Honestly this is just sorta a Tuesday for an advanced Gentoo user? There are lots of ways to do this documented on the Gentoo wiki. Ask in IRC or on the Forum if you can't find it. "Catalyst" is the method used by the internal build systems to produce images, for instance https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Catalyst.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#156

Post by jayofdoom »

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.

OP's statement matches my understanding; parts were gentoo-based at one point.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#157

Post by jayofdoom »

Philpax wrote: post #45
Y_Y wrote: post #3

> The Gentoo Foundation took in $12,066 in fiscal year 2025 (ending 2025/06/30); the dominant part (over 80%) consists of individual cash donations from the community. On the SPI side, we received $8,471 in the same period as fiscal year 2025; also here, this is all from small individual cash donations. It's crazy how projects this large and influential can get by on so little cash. Of course a lot of people are dona…

...is Gentoo large and influential these days? As far as I'm aware, its current cultural status is that of a punchline, but I'm open to being corrected.

Gentoo is often at the forefront of identifying and helping resolve integration issues between different software projects, particularly when it comes to compiler tech (e.g. fixing packages so they can be built properly with LTO, or with LLVM as well as GCC) or other backend-detail-minutia which makes the whole system better without always being visible to the end user.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#158

Post by jayofdoom »

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…

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.

Re: Gentoo Linux 2025 Review

#159

Post by jayofdoom »

Thanks for posting this! It's been a nice first year as a Gentoo developer. Everyone has been kind and helpful to me as I've been figuring things out.

I want to highlight something: Gentoo's developer onboarding system is EXCELLENT. Starting as an active member of the general community, you talk an existing developer into being your mentor and fill out an open book test ( https://projects.gentoo.org/comrel/recruiters/quizzes/ebuild... ) which later is graded/corrected in a couple of meetings which I'd equate to the "job interview". I wish more open source projects (including my own) had such well-documented, straightforward processes to gain commit access. I appreciated the process of doing the quiz as it helped me close gaps in my knowledge.

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