Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
Anyone here moved away from Arch Linux?
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4 ... 11, 12, 13  Next  
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo Chat
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Doorbreath
n00b
n00b


Joined: 27 May 2010
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 4:48 pm    Post subject: Gentoo vs arch Reply with quote

Anyone any idea of the size of gentoos userbase compared to arch? What advantages does gentoo have over arch? I'm stuck choosing between them
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada

PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo is sources based and you can configure your Cflags and use flags.

With Arch, by default it's a binary distro but you can use the AUR and compile your own stuff.

I don't think that you have any use flags, but at least you can change your cflags.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
John R. Graham
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 10587
Location: Somewhere over Atlanta, Georgia

PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a very rough comparison of the user bases, as of today, the size of the forums are:
  • Gentoo: 128,188 registered users; 5,107,149 posts (some of which are not spam).
  • Arch: 35,654 registered users; 740,593 posts.
- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
jonnevers
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 02 Jan 2003
Posts: 1594
Location: Gentoo64 land

PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

easy.

do you want to compile everything from source?
Yes: try gentoo.
No: try arch.

I doubt you'll be disappointed by either.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
leprosys
n00b
n00b


Joined: 09 Nov 2009
Posts: 8
Location: El Salvador

PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 8:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can see the comparison in the Arch wiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_Distributions#Gentoo

But I like Gentoo for the reason it's more simple. Has more packages in the official ports.
I don't like AUR is maintained by Arch Linux users and some packages are unstable.
Some packages are necessary or useful, are in AUR. Arch need more developers?
The downgrades are difficult to make (you need the binary of the previous version.).
Pro for Arch Linux, the installation is obviously faster, pacman is simple to use, they have good documentation on the wiki.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Doorbreath
n00b
n00b


Joined: 27 May 2010
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 10:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure I like how arch handles package groups (if I'm understanding it correctly), say if the devs add a package to the base group, I would not get that package automatically as the group is already installed (right?). If the gentoo devs add a package to the base (profile?) I'd get that on my next emerge -uDNav world (right? Excuse me if I've got everything wrong)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada

PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that Arch has some meta packages.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
phajdan.jr
Retired Dev
Retired Dev


Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 1777
Location: Poland

PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 3:41 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo vs arch Reply with quote

Doorbreath wrote:
What advantages does gentoo have over arch?


Disclaimer: everything I write here is (obviously) my personal, subjective opinion.

- better documentation
- better tools (qlop, eix, dispatch-conf, eclean, module-rebuild just to name a few)
- better package manager (USE flags rock)

Doorbreath wrote:
I'm stuck choosing between them


How about trying both then? I think that different people like different distros. You may like Arch more, or you may rather prefer Gentoo. :D
_________________
http://phajdan-jr.blogspot.com/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Jaglover
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 8291
Location: Saint Amant, Acadiana

PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 3:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo documentation is good, no doubt. But often, when googleing, the best answer comes from Arch wiki.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Logicien
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 1555
Location: Montréal

PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use ArchLinux because it give what Slackware, if I am up to date, miss to have: a complete package manager. Between others, Slackware and Gentoo give's to the user the possibility and the need to personalize and control the system, so ArchLinux who his, as it's say, based on Gentoo and Slackware, have this charateristic too.

Gentoo is a sources distribution and is more complete then ArchLinux in that way. However, you do not need USE flags to personalize what you compile. You can do it with the configure options in general and more specificaly in the PKGBUILD with ArchLinux. For a complete compiled system, it would be painfull. :D

There is one thing it's say in the ArchLinux world, that compile sources for machine specific architecture and material do not give more performance and stability then generics binary's. I doubt. :D
_________________
Paul
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kingoftherings
Guru
Guru


Joined: 04 May 2008
Posts: 328

PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2010 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

d2_racing wrote:
Gentoo is sources based and you can configure your Cflags and use flags.

With Arch, by default it's a binary distro but you can use the AUR and compile your own stuff.

I don't think that you have any use flags, but at least you can change your cflags.


And what's great about use flags is you can to some degree configure dependencies. Don't want a package pulling in a ton of stuff you don't want? Just configure the use flags.

In Arch that isn't any way to do that. When you install something, you pull in all of it's dependencies.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shining Arcanine
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 1110

PostPosted: Sat May 29, 2010 4:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Logicien wrote:
I use ArchLinux because it give what Slackware, if I am up to date, miss to have: a complete package manager. Between others, Slackware and Gentoo give's to the user the possibility and the need to personalize and control the system, so ArchLinux who his, as it's say, based on Gentoo and Slackware, have this charateristic too.

Gentoo is a sources distribution and is more complete then ArchLinux in that way. However, you do not need USE flags to personalize what you compile. You can do it with the configure options in general and more specificaly in the PKGBUILD with ArchLinux. For a complete compiled system, it would be painfull. :D

There is one thing it's say in the ArchLinux world, that compile sources for machine specific architecture and material do not give more performance and stability then generics binary's. I doubt. :D


While you will not get more stability from customized binaries than you would get from generic binaries, you will get more performance from customized binaries. The fact that they are customized for a specific architecture allows them to use only one codepath, which is optimal for your system. That makes the binaries smaller, reducing load times and the memory footprint. While that is not a huge effect, it is measurable.``
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
pilla
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 07 Aug 2002
Posts: 7729
Location: Underworld

PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2010 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Merged some posts.
_________________
"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas

PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 5:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

moved my main box from Gentoo=> arch, running a nice chunk of Gentoo guests in KVM

I do miss Gentoo already, and would prefer it on the desktop, but it simply makes the process of crafting an initramfs for crypt-root way, way, way too cumbersome.
What worked for me in '04-'05 no longer works. I tried 40 or 50 different permutations of an initramfs, different methods (genkernel, mkinitrd, crafting by hand) and finally said screw it.

Arch automates this, very very nicely.

Need full volume crypto, so this was a killer for me. At some point I'll back up my VM's, and move this back to Gentoo after "reverse engineering" the initramfs that Arch creates, but thus far Arch has been pretty damn stable for me, and the doc pretty top quality (I think the loss of the Wiki a year or two back was it? Was a major setback)

That's it. That's literally the only reason I tried out Arch. I'm going nuts from not having the same level of control, but alas at this stage it's a critical requirement I have that Gentoo is not meeting.

If I had a decent - and most importantly, RELIABLE - tool for an initramfs, where I could just change a few configuration settings somewhere, fire it off, and have one that's pretty well guaranteed to get me to luksOpen without issue, I would be back tomorrow.

I prefer Gentoo in every single other capacity, top to bottom, except that one niggling thing. And fuck, this community is amazing. I had another account back in '04, but well, the nick was totally gay; I've been 'round for a bit, and it's been top notch folks here day in day out.

Ah well, like I said, one of these days I'm going to rip apart Arch's initramfs, see where I went wrong, fix it, and go back to Gentoo.

It's about time to build out a new box anyway, so that may be the test bed. I just needed to have something up and running quickly, so I could put up my VM's for web/irc/mail. Spending a full week working on the crypto was not an option.

/me prices out a new rig on Newegg
_________________
Lost configuring your system?
dump lspci -n here | see Pappy's guide | Link Stash
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dE_logics
Advocate
Advocate


Joined: 02 Jan 2009
Posts: 2253
Location: $TERM

PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For productivity Arch is better than Gentoo, for many other thinigs, Gentoo is better than arch.

I prefer Gentoo for special purpose system...that's where it really shines.

Here's my complete opinion -

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-6286943.html#6286943

They also contain some benchmark facts between Arch and Gentoo.
_________________
My blog
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
trent9008
n00b
n00b


Joined: 16 Jul 2007
Posts: 6

PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was a Gentoo user for a while, went distro hopping, landed on Arch for a year or so, got bored, and installed Gentoo again. So far I haven't gone back, but I intend to eventually -- maybe this summer.

Arch IMO really shines in terms of maintenance. There's less to do to keep an up to date, stable system. In a year of using it I only had one problem (not including the ones I caused myself) just running 'pacman -Syu' regularly (that was a libjpeg upgrade that broke backwards compatibility somehow -- it was simple enough to wait for the rest of the software to pick it up). Gentoo is still waiting for me to resolve 6 configuration file conflicts (I'll get around to it eventually) and, naturally, takes forever to update or install new software.

The Arch system is set up a little more ... sparsely, I guess, than Gentoo. BSD init scripts, for instance. It's easier to keep track of, in my mind at least. But Gentoo runs faster for me and offers a bit more control. Also I forgot the convenience of compiling one's own kernel. And the Arch repos lack some software that I like to use on Gentoo.

"Gentoo users will generally feel quite comfortable with most aspects of Arch." (Arch wiki)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dE_logics
Advocate
Advocate


Joined: 02 Jan 2009
Posts: 2253
Location: $TERM

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:57 am    Post subject: ^^ Reply with quote

You know you can use Arch kernel for Gentoo. I did the opposite... and I do it all the time (mixing up kernels of all distros)
_________________
My blog
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:28 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

dE_logics wrote:
You know you can use Arch kernel for Gentoo. I did the opposite... and I do it all the time (mixing up kernels of all distros)


aye, I'd thought about that.

But when I move back I don't want to keep Arch around to keep generating the initrd for me.
I want to know what they did right with it that I did wrong; once I've learned this, I'll go back to Gentoo as soon as I'm fully confident I know what was missed.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
phajdan.jr
Retired Dev
Retired Dev


Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 1777
Location: Poland

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:17 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

cach0rr0 wrote:
But when I move back I don't want to keep Arch around to keep generating the initrd for me.


It seems it would be really cool to port the Arch's initrd tool to Gentoo. :wink: Let me know if I can help somehow.
_________________
http://phajdan-jr.blogspot.com/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 10:08 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

phajdan.jr wrote:
cach0rr0 wrote:
But when I move back I don't want to keep Arch around to keep generating the initrd for me.


It seems it would be really cool to port the Arch's initrd tool to Gentoo. :wink: Let me know if I can help somehow.


I agree. Hell, soon as this madhouse at work calms down a bit I'm going to look at it very seriously. I'll admit I've done zero looking into how they do it thus far.

(good news there actually: showed my barely-technical boss the advantages of gentoo, he saw a sluggish CentOS vs Gentoo screaming, he's now a believer/convert, and we're now putting our entire SaaS atop Gentoo Xen guests - 8 proxies in the US, 10 in Peru, 2 MX in the US, 2 in Peru - and I've had the pleasure of writing ebuilds for our RPM's! But between being the only one looking after those servers, only one maintaining the ebuilds, the only one at the company that knows and/or doesn't fear Gentoo, as well doing QA for our product, writing spam sigs/keyword nonsense, and loads of other stuff, I'm working 14-18 hour days, so no tinkering time. Either way, I'm proud of Gentoo! And I'm sure there will be more to come. My boss who wouldn't know the difference in the underpinnings described it as "shit hot")
_________________
Lost configuring your system?
dump lspci -n here | see Pappy's guide | Link Stash
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dE_logics
Advocate
Advocate


Joined: 02 Jan 2009
Posts: 2253
Location: $TERM

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:57 pm    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

phajdan.jr wrote:
cach0rr0 wrote:
But when I move back I don't want to keep Arch around to keep generating the initrd for me.


It seems it would be really cool to port the Arch's initrd tool to Gentoo. :wink: Let me know if I can help somehow.


I would like to know, why do we have pacman in portage? It's apparently of no use... just waste of resources.

Instead entropy will be a very good idea. I already have a bug filed (although I know it's in the overlays).

Speaking of CentOS... I don't expect it to work for desktops... its Kernel should be tweaked for servers; that will be horribly unresponsive for the desktops.
_________________
My blog
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas

PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 8:55 pm    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

dE_logics wrote:

Speaking of CentOS... I don't expect it to work for desktops... its Kernel should be tweaked for servers; that will be horribly unresponsive for the desktops.


I am aware. These were servers. It is still a bloated to hell pile of dog shit. A bare minimal base CentOS install you're still looking at ~200MB memory used on startup. My Gentoo VM's were using 20-25MB each upon startup - partially a very lean kernel, partially snipping out idiotic shit from startup that should never be on a server to begin with, and I'd assume partially not having to mmap() half the feckin drive just to load one binary! (and to be clear, this was not inclusive of our proxy's memory footprint.)

So basically how this happened, I was stuck down in Peru, and we'd deployed 5 proxies on CentOS already, as ESXi guests. Long story short, fucking random connection resets, partial page content, etc etc. Really annoying shit, the trip was nearly a catastrophe - I was down there to deploy our product for a big OEM deal, and shit, some bug of ours (or so I thought) is causing random resets and partial page content...

So as a troubleshooting tool only, I build out a Gentoo VM, largely because I'm a hell of a lot more familiar with it, and it's heaps easier to get the requisite tools on there. I was trying to replicate the issue, but well, I couldn't; our software was working wonderfully.

From there my boss said "fuck it, I don't care what it runs on, as long as it works, and that gentoo test box of yours is flyin' - faster than our production systems in the US".

When we got back to the US, we were looking at deploying more servers of our own, he says "no no no, make it Gentoo, it's shit hot, and this is your baby to maintain"

I realize not all of this is 100% sound on the technical side, and I realize Gentoo hasn't reinvented the wheel, but "merely" pieced together a bunch of existing projects, but I'm pleased. I mean hell, perceived quickness *does* make a difference. BFS is a classic example of this; I have yet to see any benchmarks showing it yields an improvement, yet, everyone who makes the switch immediately notices a snappier UI.

Anyway, I've had a lot of coffee, time to stop typing.
_________________
Lost configuring your system?
dump lspci -n here | see Pappy's guide | Link Stash
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shining Arcanine
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 1110

PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:09 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

cach0rr0 wrote:
dE_logics wrote:

Speaking of CentOS... I don't expect it to work for desktops... its Kernel should be tweaked for servers; that will be horribly unresponsive for the desktops.


I am aware. These were servers. It is still a bloated to hell pile of dog shit. A bare minimal base CentOS install you're still looking at ~200MB memory used on startup. My Gentoo VM's were using 20-25MB each upon startup - partially a very lean kernel, partially snipping out idiotic shit from startup that should never be on a server to begin with, and I'd assume partially not having to mmap() half the feckin drive just to load one binary! (and to be clear, this was not inclusive of our proxy's memory footprint.)

So basically how this happened, I was stuck down in Peru, and we'd deployed 5 proxies on CentOS already, as ESXi guests. Long story short, fucking random connection resets, partial page content, etc etc. Really annoying shit, the trip was nearly a catastrophe - I was down there to deploy our product for a big OEM deal, and shit, some bug of ours (or so I thought) is causing random resets and partial page content...

So as a troubleshooting tool only, I build out a Gentoo VM, largely because I'm a hell of a lot more familiar with it, and it's heaps easier to get the requisite tools on there. I was trying to replicate the issue, but well, I couldn't; our software was working wonderfully.

From there my boss said "fuck it, I don't care what it runs on, as long as it works, and that gentoo test box of yours is flyin' - faster than our production systems in the US".

When we got back to the US, we were looking at deploying more servers of our own, he says "no no no, make it Gentoo, it's shit hot, and this is your baby to maintain"

I realize not all of this is 100% sound on the technical side, and I realize Gentoo hasn't reinvented the wheel, but "merely" pieced together a bunch of existing projects, but I'm pleased. I mean hell, perceived quickness *does* make a difference. BFS is a classic example of this; I have yet to see any benchmarks showing it yields an improvement, yet, everyone who makes the switch immediately notices a snappier UI.

Anyway, I've had a lot of coffee, time to stop typing.


Nice story. It is nice to hear that businesses do switch from CentOS to Gentoo Linux. I think that Gentoo Linux is worth the time it takes to compile stuff and it would be nice if more businesses saw that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cach0rr0
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva


Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 4123
Location: Houston, Republic of Texas

PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:17 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

Shining Arcanine wrote:

Nice story. It is nice to hear that businesses do switch from CentOS to Gentoo Linux. I think that Gentoo Linux is worth the time it takes to compile stuff and it would be nice if more businesses saw that.


Now if only we can do away with this

Code:

oursoftwarename.redhat_i586.rpm


really not suitable for a load quad core opterons.
_________________
Lost configuring your system?
dump lspci -n here | see Pappy's guide | Link Stash
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shining Arcanine
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 1110

PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:19 am    Post subject: Re: ^^ Reply with quote

cach0rr0 wrote:
Shining Arcanine wrote:

Nice story. It is nice to hear that businesses do switch from CentOS to Gentoo Linux. I think that Gentoo Linux is worth the time it takes to compile stuff and it would be nice if more businesses saw that.


Now if only we can do away with this

Code:

oursoftwarename.redhat_i586.rpm


really not suitable for a load quad core opterons.


If you are running Gentoo Linux, what keeps you from compiling the software to run natively in 64-bit mode on the processors used?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo Chat All times are GMT
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4 ... 11, 12, 13  Next
Page 3 of 13

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum