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Seclar
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
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Location: Chelmsford, England
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 Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:40 pm Post subject: How about binaries as well as source ? |
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I love gentoo. It's my chosen distro.
It's biggest strength (compiling everything from source to optimise performance) is also its biggest weakness (long wait times to emerge packages).
I was wondering if gentoo could aim for the best of both worlds - source and binary packages. The reasoning is simple. There are many packages I would rather not build from source but would instead prefer to just install quickly and not fail on compile.
Applets for instance don't need to be built from source since they take little processing power so there is no performance benefit to be gained by compiling for an Athlon when an i386 build will do just fine. However, big packages can take such a long time (hours - even on fast machines) that I'd rather have a a generic i386 binary installed instead.
I realise that major gentoo releases come on cds with the core stuff pre-compiled for a particular cpu (Athlon, P4 etc), but this does not cover most of the packages that are available in portage, which must be downloaded, built and installed.
What are peoples' thoughts on expanding gentoo to incorporate both source and binary packages? So for instance, you could emerge mozilla (source version), or emerge mozilla-bin (binary version). This could even be extended to CPU builds such as a mozilla-bin-athlon or mozilla-bin-pentium4 etc.
Do we need/want this in gentoo?
Would it benefit gentoo users to have it?
What are the technical/logistical challenges with this ?
I'm curious to hear other peoples thoughts...
P.S. What prompted this question was when my friend asked me to build a gentoo box using a Pentium 200Mhz. My first thought was "cool, I'll use gentoo". This was immediately followed by "oh my god, that will take forever to emerge - I'll use debian instead".
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Seclar
And lo did Moses return from the mountains with the 10 Coding Commandments and a CD full of source code and examples.... |
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welshofdave
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Joined: 02 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:50 pm Post subject: Re: How about binaries as well as source ? |
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| Seclar wrote: |
Would it benefit gentoo users to have it?
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I think it would. Instead of waiting an hour or whatever to see if firebird^H^H^H^Hfox was finally worth using, one could quickly install and try it, then install from the source package if it was found to be any good and you wanted that little bit of extra performance. |
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Snugglycat
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Joined: 05 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Isn't this what GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) is for? |
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Aonoa
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Joined: 23 May 2002
Posts: 589
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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For starters there's another thread discussing somewhat the same issue:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=135571&sid=35abb224d942b8f8f93f86f4a12bf30a
I also think it would be a nice option to have the ability to install pre-built binaries through portage, it would require some big space upgrades for all the mirrors. It will add the possibility of getting a proggie installed fast if you have little time.
Several people I've talked to concerning Gentoo rather dislike the fact that they have to build everything from source, because it's too time consuming for them. They relax at the mention of the GRP install which will give them a working system without any or little compiling to begin with.
About that Pentium 200MHz machine, if possible you could have pre-built the system on another machine and gzipped it, used a livecd to get the partitions done etc and moved the system over through scp. I did this once for a friend of mine's laptop. 
Back to the topic, yes. I think the addition of binaries in portage would be a good thing.
Space would be the primary issue? along with how many types of binaries should be made.. only i386 for intel and whatnot for amd?
This might not be of much use/popular with the majority of the gentoo users however, since we like our binaries optimized, don't we?  |
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Seclar
n00b
Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 60
Location: Chelmsford, England
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Isn't this what GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) is for? |
For those that don't know what this is:
| Quote: | | "This 2-CD set contains the Gentoo Reference Platform, which includes over 600MB of pre-built versions of popular applications like KDE 3.1.2, GNOME 2, Xfree86..." |
That certainly helps. But the problem with CDs is they become out of date quickly. I was thinking more along the lines of it being in the portage tree and mirrored across the portage servers. Each package would be kept up to date and the binary builds released with the source ones...
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Seclar
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asimon
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Joined: 27 Jun 2002
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Location: Germany, Old Europe
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| People who want binary packages may have a look at Project Chinstrap. |
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thrasher6670
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Joined: 04 Aug 2003
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Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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the biggest problem i see with trying to use bianaries is the time involved.
one of the greatest things about gentoo is the timly releases. if we were to provide bianaries we would have to have one for every major platfor, wouldent we? (ppc, sparc,x86, etc...). this would slow down the release of EVERY package, each package would have to be built on each platform, so we need dedicated compiling machines for each platform. then we would need to test these builds on each platform for stability. think of all the time that would take. especially for 6000+ packages, roughly 50 updated daily.
if we were to provide bianaries we would turn into debian with a compile option, I do not want to see this happen. I can see why people would want bianary packages but that is not the idea of gentoo, I would point those people to debian.
and now for the rant:
<rant>
I find that too many people have been spoiled with instant results for everything in life, fast food, instant coffee, hell you can walk into H&R block and get your taxes back that day. I personally feel people need to slow down, take their time and have some patients. most people now-a-days has a fairly decent machine (1ghz+) and would be able to "update" their system while they sleep. do you really need that new version of ncurses right now, this second?
</rant>
ok i'm done.
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asimon
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Joined: 27 Jun 2002
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| thrasher6670 wrote: | if we were to provide bianaries we would have to have one for every major platfor, wouldent we? (ppc, sparc,x86, etc...).
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Right now ebuilds don't get into <arch> or ~<arch> at the same time for different platforms. Why do you think this is mandatory for binary packages?
| thrasher6670 wrote: | then we would need to test these builds on each platform for stability. think of all the time that would take. especially for 6000+ packages, roughly 50 updated daily.
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Maybe I misunderstand this but are you saying that ebuilds as they're now don't have to be tested on each platfrom for stability? In fact this has to be done before it gets commited into an arch in Portage, no matter if it's a source package or a binary one. I don't see binaries as bad for testing as USE or GCC flags.
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I can see why people would want bianary packages but that is not the idea of gentoo, I would point those people to debian.
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I remember that the original idea behind Gentoo was to not suck and not to have source packages only. If there is a smart way have binary packages and people who are willing to do the job, why not? Nobody suggests to take away source ebuilds. |
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Cossins
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Joined: 21 Mar 2003
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Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Code: | | while (true) { n = n^(++n); } |
n is the number of times this has been up and discussed in the forums.
Please search before posting! Gentoo has binary packages for common architectures, and I'm really getting tired of seeing threads about this every week.
- Simon
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thrasher6670
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Joined: 04 Aug 2003
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Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| asimon wrote: |
Right now ebuilds don't get into <arch> or ~<arch> at the same time for different platforms. Why do you think this is mandatory for binary packages? |
its not that they have to be done at the same time, its that they have to be done eventually. an ebuild does allow for a little more leway in this area. i'm sure there are very few developers with a SPARK machine, to ensure that packages are what they are supposed to be (no rootkits) the packages would have to be compiled by a trusted source. with an ebuild the source of the information can be quite a bit less trusted (did the ebuild compile for you? yes. great i'll ask a few others to make sure). so in the long run more developers would need to recruited and all the hassles that go with that.
| asimon wrote: |
Maybe I misunderstand this but are you saying that ebuilds as they're now don't have to be tested on each platfrom for stability? In fact this has to be done before it gets commited into an arch in Portage, no matter if it's a source package or a binary one. I don't see binaries as bad for testing as USE or GCC flags. |
yes they would be tested in a similar way, but i'm sure you agree we should not drop the compile from source option. so we now need to do a double test, first test that the ebuild compiles properly on all the various machines, then test that the binary works aswell, double the work. i'm not even going to start in on how people would complain about the USE flags used for said binaries.
| asimon wrote: |
I remember that the original idea behind Gentoo was to not suck and not to have source packages only. If there is a smart way have binary packages and people who are willing to do the job, why not? Nobody suggests to take away source ebuilds. |
the basic idea behind gentoo, in relation to other distros, is to have a system compiled and setup to your exact specifications and hardware. a binary subset of the portage WOULD just be a copy of debian, the packages would have to contain all available options (USE flag options), the packages would be slower then the more custom compiled packages that gentoo allows thus destroying gentoo's essence, its neiche.
and if you belive people will have a mixed system, some packages compiled, some source compiled. i very much doubt this would happen often... the community would diverge, the gentoo purists (compiled) and the prepacked people, i would hate to see this happen.
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thrasher6670
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Joined: 04 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Cossins wrote: | | Code: | | while (true) { n = n^(++n); } |
n is the number of times this has been up and discussed in the forums.
Please search before posting! Gentoo has binary packages for common architectures, and I'm really getting tired of seeing threads about this every week.
- Simon |
just thought i would contribute to the argument just this once
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asimon
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Joined: 27 Jun 2002
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| thrasher6670 wrote: |
i'm sure there are very few developers with a SPARK machine, to ensure that packages are what they are supposed to be (no rootkits) the packages would have to be compiled by a trusted source.
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That's the reason why it takes longer for a package to enter sparc or ~sparc. Of course would they have to be compile by a trusted source, just like it's with the ebuild and source code.
| thrasher6670 wrote: |
with an ebuild the source of the information can be quite a bit less trusted
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I absolutly disagree. A ebuild which downloads some source code and builts it can be as evil as any binary.
| thrasher6670 wrote: |
so in the long run more developers would need to recruited and all the hassles that go with that.
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Of course, everything has to be done by developers. And as long as there is no resource to do something this discussion is to no avail (all of your or mine arguments can be found multiple times in this forum anyway).
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so we now need to do a double test, first test that the ebuild compiles properly on all the various machines, then test that the binary works aswell, double the work.
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These so called "double tests" are mandatory anyway. An ebuild which results in an unstable or broken binary should no be in Portage. And as you can see from many changelog entries it's common practice to mask ebuilds if they proove to be unstable. Sorry, but "it compiles" is by far not enough.
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a binary subset of the portage WOULD just be a copy of debian, the packages would have to contain all available options (USE flag options), the packages would be slower then the more custom compiled packages that gentoo allows thus destroying gentoo's essence, its neiche.
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I don't see how this should be more a copy of Debian then Gentoo is already a copy from any source-based distro.
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and if you belive people will have a mixed system, some packages compiled, some source compiled.
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Ahm, people already have! Maybe not you or me but others and I don't think that developers do the hassle of setting binaries up just for a hand-ful of people.
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i very much doubt this would happen often... the community would diverge, the gentoo purists (compiled) and the prepacked people, i would hate to see this happen. |
Looking that this is the 100.000th thread about binary packages and there are already exists binaries for Gentoo there must be high demand. And I think those people will continue their work no matter how much you dislike or I like the idea.  |
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thrasher6670
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Joined: 04 Aug 2003
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Location: London, Ontario
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| asimon wrote: |
That's the reason why it takes longer for a package to enter sparc or ~sparc. Of course would they have to be compile by a trusted source, just like it's with the ebuild and source code. |
| asimon wrote: | | I absolutly disagree. A ebuild which downloads some source code and builts it can be as evil as any binary. |
the "trused" source is the one that creates the ebuild not the package for a package based you would need multiple trused sources for the packages, with an ebuild you require one, on to make the x86 version from there you only need SPARC people to try compiling the source, they would have no effect on the source packages on the servers. with binaries you would need one (perhaps less) for each ~arch.
| asimon wrote: | | Of course, everything has to be done by developers. And as long as there is no resource to do something this discussion is to no avail (all of your or mine arguments can be found multiple times in this forum anyway). |
-- i'll leave that bit
| asimon wrote: | | These so called "double tests" are mandatory anyway. An ebuild which results in an unstable or broken binary should no be in Portage. And as you can see from many changelog entries it's common practice to mask ebuilds if they proove to be unstable. Sorry, but "it compiles" is by far not enough. |
well obviosly a litte more testing then i stated, but no matter how much testing is done, a little or a lot, with the binary sets it would have to be re-done. still double testing.
| asimon wrote: | | I don't see how this should be more a copy of Debian then Gentoo is already a copy from any source-based distro. |
personally i dont know of any other source based distros (besides Linux From Scratch... but i wouldent call that a distro)
| asimon wrote: | | Ahm, people already have! Maybe not you or me but others and I don't think that developers do the hassle of setting binaries up just for a hand-ful of people. |
these are mostly the people that wish they were all compiled, if there was an option they would use it. i point these people to debian.
| asimon wrote: | | Looking that this is the 100.000th thread about binary packages and there are already exists binaries for Gentoo there must be high demand. And I think those people will continue their work no matter how much you dislike or I like the idea. |
yes they will continue, but i genuinly hope it is never made official, i like my ebuilds released in a timely fashion.
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welshofdave
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thrasher6670
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| welshofdave wrote: |
There are bound to be more out there.
To say that to be Debian, Gentoo would simply have to supply binary packages is to misunderstand Debian. |
i'm not saying it would be debian exacly, just very close (with the compile feature). and would inherit the problems that come with a binary distrobution. what is a big complaint people hove for debian,RH,mandrake and alike? the packages are out of date.... gentoo would just become worse because of that compile option, packages would take even longer then other distros.
thanks for the list, if gentoo hits binary hell, i have some options.
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Seclar
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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From what has been said so far I can conclude:
There are logistical problems with having binary packages alongside source ones in the portage tree such as server space and computational power to build binaries packages daily.
Some people argue that wanting binary packages means you're impatient and you should not be using gentoo in that case (I happen to like the way gentoo does things - i.e. sensibly - I see binaries as an enhancement to a great distro).
thrasher6670 believes that if gentoo moves into source and binary packages then this will fork the gentoo community as the source-only purists amongst, effectively, sulk, and take their ball in.
Binary packages would present technical issues with the USE cases people have set.
There are concerns that if gentoo supported source and binary packages then this would slow down the release of ebuilds. Why could the binary packages not follow on a few days/weeks later when they are ready?
I would ask why gentoo could not support compiling binaries packages from a compilation time stand-point - all the other binary distros seem to manage compiling hundreds of binary packages don't they ?
As for server space and the like then if gentoo is to grow and become more popular then this hurdle will have to be overcome anyway - it is inevitable I think.
Finally, I would say that (as ever) people like choice. If gentoo had source and binary packages there would be people who would opt for the binaries only, people who would opt for source only, and lots of people with a mixed environment. I don't believe gentoo should stand still with the attitude "we are a source-only distro - we don't do binaries". gentoo is up against a lot of competition and it has to be both open-minded and pragmatic about what best serves its community. For every person out there that chooses gentoo because it is a source-only distro, there will be a person who turns their back on it because it fails to offer pre-built binaries. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, that is both gentoo's strength and its weakness.
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Seclar
And lo did Moses return from the mountains with the 10 Coding Commandments and a CD full of source code and examples.... |
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Genone
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| As Cossins already said this is one of the most dupe-worthy topics on these forums. I'll just summarize the official Gentoo position: If anyone wants to do this on their own they'll welcome, however officially we'll only offer and support the GRP binaries, this also means that any user-initiated project won't be hosted on Gentoo Servers or linked from www.gentoo.org. |
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Seclar
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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Well that's unfortunate Genone. Not only have you "Officially" closed the book, but you've effectively stated that you will censor any user-supported move to bring binary packages to gentoo by banning all coverage of it from gentoo.
I have no doubt you have not heard the end of this topic.
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Seclar
And lo did Moses return from the mountains with the 10 Coding Commandments and a CD full of source code and examples.... |
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Seclar
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry, one last point for Genone - your site http://www.genone.de/ doesn't render in Mozilla or Galeon.
Works in IE though
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Seclar
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Genone
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Seclar wrote: | | Well that's unfortunate Genone. Not only have you "Officially" closed the book, but you've effectively stated that you will censor any user-supported move to bring binary packages to gentoo by banning all coverage of it from gentoo. |
Be careful with that word (censor).
The reason we won't do it officially is mainly a support issue, I'm not going to repeat everything I and other devs said about this in the past, please refer to this thread.
Also I haven't said that you can't advertise binary repositories (www.gentoo.org != forums.gentoo.org) |
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Genone
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Seclar wrote: | | Sorry, one last point for Genone - your site http://www.genone.de/ doesn't render in Mozilla or Galeon. |
Works in Firebird (yes, not Firefox) here. |
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plate
Bodhisattva
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| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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And that concludes today's attempt at resuscitating one of the most beaten topics that's been duplicated here more times than I personally care to remember. To sum up this and the other threads, and I believe the answers are still valid:
- Yes, there are binaries. A select number of packages is available in the GRP.
- No, there currently aren't any Gentoo developers with enough free time and/or ambition on their hands to spend on rolling out thousands of binaries for multiple platforms, and certainly not for every possible permutation of USE- or CFLAGs.
- Yes, you're perfectly free to provide that kind of service on your own.
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