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Gentoo goes Binary

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Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#261

Post by pzmarzly »

tedunangst wrote: post #242
Sesse__ wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the last x86-compatible chips without 64-bit support were launched around 2006 or so (Intel Core; Core 2 had 64-bit support), a couple of years after Opteron initially came out. It's not really clear how long the Linux kernel itself will continue supporting such CPUs. The architecture certainly isn't something anyone really cares about (e.g. Meltdown wasn't patched for several months after it went public an…

There were Atom CPUs that weren't supposed to be 64-bit for a while after that.

Yup, I bought a brand new 32-bit Intel Atom tablet from Toshiba in 2014, gave it away but the person I gave it to is still using it. It has 32-bit UEFI, which is also loads of fun. I once installed Debian on it, but I couldn't get touchscreen to work, so went back to Windows 8.

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#262

Post by bitcharmer »

mad182 wrote: post #108
bitcharmer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, I did not expect to see NetBeans here. What do you use it for and why NetBeans?

General web development. PHP, javascript, css. I used to do some java projects as well, but not lately. I know it's not mainstream to use NetBeans these days, but I don't care, I'm just used to it and it gets the job done. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Thanks for answering. I'm not NetBeans fan myself but there's absolutely nothing wrong with using the tools you like that get the job done.

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#263

Post by shotnothing »

connorgutman wrote: post #236
gary_0 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Intel or anyone still sell 32-bit x86 chips for non-embedded use? A quick Google was inconclusive, although it seems that while Intel sells low-power x86 chips under the "Pentium Silver" brand, they all seem to be 64-bit now. So eventually more and more old x86 boxes will be decommissioned, and 32-bit x86 will be dead as a desktop platform, no? Which might mean people who want to run old proprietary 32-bit games…

Absolutely not... but hear me out. NetBSD plans on supporting 32-bit x86 until "long after 2038 ( http://www.netbsd.org/about/ )." Legacy hardware matters for many reasons. Outside of the fact that I still love my Lenovo x60s and use it as a distraction-free writing machine, much of the world still depends upon 32-bit architecture. We can't be replacing computers for all 8 billion people on Earth every 10-20 years. H…

> Hell, think about all the government bureaucrats still running MS DOS! :-)

That's not a good thing though, perhaps aggressively depreciating 32 bit will light a fire under their asses

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#264

Post by cbmuser »

airhangerf15 wrote: post #260
pabs3 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux kernel just deleted IA64, so that support won't last for long, unless Gentoo keeps ancient kernel versions? Debian still has unofficial ia64 and powerpc ports too.

It doesn't, but the kernel also isn't package managed, just the source. You can keep around the ebuilds for older kernels in an overlay, or someone might maintain an enthusiast overlay just for IA64 kernel support.

What do you mean "it doesn't"? I'm maintaining Debian Ports and I build installer images for all old and obscure targets. We even have support for SuperH which Gentoo dropped at some point.

> https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=base-files&su...

> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/

Installer images for LoongArch are in the works as well.

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#265

Post by Sesse__ »

Dalewyn wrote: post #249
bdavbdav wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a crossover point though where the effort to support it is larger than the supply of newer hardware coming through. With the last x86 deaktop chips coming out in ~2006, I would bet there are very few viable use cases left. That’s 6 3-year cycles past.

I have a number of old computers lying around the house in closets, some 32-bit only. Linux not running on them anymore is actually pretty annoying since, as I said, that used to be one of its oldest mantras. Outside of the enterprise crowd, Linux's next biggest audience are the tinkerers and hobbyists with too much free time and ancient hardware well past their Use By date. What a time it is that we can legitimately…

The hobbyist Linux market generally tinkers with things like Raspberry Pis now, not ancient 32-bit x86 machines. (This is a natural consequence of the fact that sources for cheap hardware have changed a lot over the last twenty years.)

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#266

Post by shotnothing »

gryn wrote: post #256
starttoaster wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience using Arch has very much been "it's just like all the other distros, except now you have at least 4 package managers to go through if you want to install any particular thing and you will almost certainly need to install utilities that convert packages from other package managers over to PKGBUILD." Other than that, it's felt very similar to just using something like Debian. Which is fine, and Debian is…

Your experience sounds weird. Reading it remind me of people who come from programming paradigm X try paradigm Y and only use methods from X only to conclude that Y sucks. Why would you use 4 package managers to do 1 thing ? Most people who use arch use 1 and it does the job. All of them are built around pacman + smth for AUR packages. Personally I use pacui. Why would you convert package from other distro, if anothe…

i think you made a point for why being opinionated is good, which is not really the debate here

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#267

Post by BrandoElFollito »

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #228
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use Gentoo 20+ years ago; installing it was eye-opening. It helped me enormously to understand how Linux works. I then moved to debian/ubuntu and recently switched my main server to Arch. And you are right - I got back this feeling of having all my 10 fingers in the system and living on the bleeding edge. Now: this was probably not the brightest choice, as this server rund my docker containers and basically…

> Now: this was probably not the brightest choice, as this server rund my docker containers and basically nothing more so it should have been Debian(a fire-and-forget OS) I dunno, there's a fair amount to be said for having an up-to-date kernel, systemd, and Docker. :)

It depends on the kind of "up-to-datism", at least for me. Security - yes. Features - for docker yes, the rest not really.

The main problem is that if I provide a specific repo for docker (to keep a fresh version) it can request some dependencies and bam! I have a Debian-Turend-Arch system to maintain :)

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#268

Post by cbmuser »

connorgutman wrote: post #166

Disclaimer: I am a die-hard Gentoo fan. The appeal of Gentoo is not compiling everything from source, it's having the freedom to install anything you want on nearly any hardware all with stellar documentation and minimal roadblocks. Want to run Enlightenment with OpenRC and NetworkManager on a laptop from 2008? Install Gentoo! Want ZFS as root on a smart refrigerator? Install Gentoo! Want a vanilla Gnome + SystemD in…

> Debian, the so-called "universal operating system" just dropped 32-bit x86 support.

I would argue that Debian has support for at least as many architectures as Gentoo:

> https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=base-files&su...

I know that because I am maintaining most of the obscure architectures in Debian with regular installation snapshots:

> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/

Debian even has a Hurd port for both i386 and amd64.

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#269

Post by cbmuser »

connorgutman wrote: post #230
Sesse__ wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Debian, the so-called "universal operating system" just dropped 32-bit x86 support. This is imprecise at best. There was a meeting where the release team concluded that most likely, there will be no _installer_ and _kernel_ support for 32-bit x86 at some unspecified point in the future. (At the current point in time, both are still delivered and fully supported.) In particular, you can still run multi-arch 32-bit/6…

Not really the point I was trying to make. Gentoo still fully supports obscure architectures such as IA64 and PowerPC 32-bit while Debian dropped both back in 2018 and 2020. Hell, not only does Gentoo still support them but the handbooks are still updated regularly. When that unspecified point in the future comes knocking for 32-bit x86 Gentoo will continue to be a rock for fun devices like my Lenovo x60 with librebo…

> Gentoo still fully supports obscure architectures such as IA64 and PowerPC 32-bit while Debian dropped both back in 2018 and 2020.

We do that in Debian, too. FWIW, I am the one that eventually greenlit the removal of the ia64 port in the kernel because I was actually the one who took care of most of the issues in the ia64 port.

I also regularly debug and report (and sometimes fix) regressions in various upstream projects regarding targets such as 32-bit PowerPC. It's not enough to solely focus on downstream work, upstream work is as important if not even more important.

Re: Gentoo goes Binary

#270

Post by GalaxySnail »

paldepind2 wrote: post #208
saghm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one place Arch still is fairly opinionated compared to Gentoo is being all-in on systemd. That's not to say you _can't_ remove/replace it, and obviously there are Arch-like distros that give other options, but my sense is that GP's comment about Gentoo's draw being completely agnostic to whatever configuration you want makes Arch having even a single strong opinion feel pretty different to users who care about th…

I wouldn't say systemd is the "one place" where Arch has an opinion. Quite the opposite, Arch is just as opinionated as the average distro. On Void Linux you can choose between musl and glibc, on Arch you're forced to use glibc. On Gentoo you can choose your init system, on Arch you're forced to use systems. On Debian you can have `/bin/sh` be any POSIX shell, on Arch you're forced to have it be Bash. On nixOS you ca…

> On Debian you can have `/bin/sh` be any POSIX shell, on Arch you're forced to have it be Bash.

AFAIK you can use any POSIX shell as `/bin/sh` on Arch Linux. By running `sudo ln -rsf /bin/dash /bin/sh`, dash works well.

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