linuxmemes

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[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

As someone who installed Gentoo from nothing but a Stage 1 iso and kernel tarball back in 2003, this is crazy to read. I was able to squeeze so much performance out of a 300mhz embedded board back then though compared to most distros... after the 6hr kernel build.

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[–] msage@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Stage 1 and 2 are no longer available (I mean technically you could, but it's not suggested). Stage 3 was super easy, even with kernel from source.

It takes time, sure, but it can compile on background. I got 16 threads on my CPU, so leaving 12 for emerge, I can still use the PC.

I get that people joke about 'days of compiling', and maybe it's real for a huge mass of packages, but even if, it doesn't stop me from working.

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[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Remember, the days of compiling was back when we were running this on 300-500Mhz single core CPUs with 5400RPM spinning rust and RAM amounts in the hundreds of MB.

The embedded system I was putting this on was a 300Mhz single core low power AMD processor with 256MB and a laptop 4200RPM 4GB drive. And yeah, it probably took over a day to compile everything... but it ran much faster than a stock kernel as I could customize the system to only have what it needed and leverage the on-chip ssl and video acceleration support. I used it for a NAS and home server for years.

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[–] msage@programming.dev 1 point 7 months ago

I know, but that's so long ago, yet the jokes are here anyway.

Which is shame, as it seems to be scaring away potential users.

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[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Gentoo is easy and almost user-friendly.

Specially coming from Arch it should be a breeze.

Less prone to randomly biting your head off anyway.

More tame.

Takes more petting though, to get it to settle.

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[–] msage@programming.dev 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Really?

I never tried Arch, so I can't compare.

Apart from initramfs from install, which took more time, it felt like everything else just worked. Including installing Steam.

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[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Really?

Yes. Gentoo really is like that compared to arch.

I never tried Arch, so I can’t compare.

Oh.

Specially coming from Arch it should be a breeze.

That^ made it seem to me like you had.

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[–] msage@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

I just read a lot of Wiki.

But when I discovered how cool it is to compile stuff, I went straight to Gentoo, assuming it's mostly the same apart from packaging.

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[–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Before I tried gentoo (or rather sabayon, for 3 years before gentoo proper), from all the "you have to compile everything", I imagined that as a lot of running "make". I didn't realise it's even easier^1^ than other package managers.

^1^ emerge is shorter to type than e.g. apt-get install

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[–] msage@programming.dev 1 point 7 months ago

Yeah, it's insane how easy to use Gentoo is.

Nobody will take it from me. But I admit to only using it on desktop, laptop is using Mint. If I ever find time to play around with a build server, I will try switching there, too.