It was announced late last year that Gentoo is now offering binary versions of their packages. I’ve always had an interest in Gentoo, but the need to compile everything has always turned me away from it. I run Arch because it gives me the sense that I have more control of my system, when compared to other distros like Ubuntu, for example, but it still keeps things simple enough for day-to-day use. That being said, when compared to Gentoo, Arch is still rather restrictive, so if there exists an alternative that offers Arch’s simplicity, and also the potential for customization of Gentoo, then I would gladly switch. I am wondering if Gentoo’s new binary offerings fit this description. From what I understand, it removes the need to set use flags, and to compile any packages, but it still allows you to maintain full control over your system.

So, in summary, is a binary Gentoo functionally equivelant to Arch Linux, but with more control over the system? I would like to know more about the following:

  1. Does the OS installation change, and, if so, how?
  2. Does package installation, updates, and maintenance change, and, if so, how?
  3. Do system updates change, and, if so, how?
  4. Do you lose any potential control over the system when using the binaries, rather than compiling from source, and, if so, what?
  5. Are there any differences in system stability? Can I expect things to break more readily on a binary Gentoo compared to Arch Linux?

Just a disclaimer: I have never used Gentoo – all my knowledge is second hand, or from skimming documentation out of curiosity. Please correct any inacuracies that I may have in my knowledge.

    • @[email protected]
      6•10 months ago

      Using binary packages — those that are offered — is missing out on a key strength of Gentoo and the primary reason one may choose it over another.

      Do you get any benefits when compiling giant binaries like FF or chromium?

      When I ran guixos those two sat in a separate manifest because compiling them was a “leave it overnight” type of jobs.

        • @[email protected]
          2•10 months ago

          I was wandering about the benefits for specific apps like browsers.

          From my limited experience, most compiled updates are finished pretty quickly. The only exception are huge binaries, so a ThinkPad literally takes hours to compile Firefox.

            • @[email protected]
              2•10 months ago

              Are the benefits of compiling from source noticeable for modern hardware or slightly last gen hardware? Like, a last generation Ryzen 5900x with NVidia 3070 GPU (my current setup).

              I know compile flags definitely have an effect, I just don’t know how dramatic a difference there would be.

      • @[email protected]
        3•10 months ago

        As the Gentoo chromium maintainer, not really - we strip most CFLAGS as part of the ebuild unless you enable a special USE flag to keep them and it’s not particularly supported - if you encounter breakage with that enabled the first thing I’m going to ask you to do is turn them off.

        Edit: we do have some USE flags that control how the package is built, but that’s mostly choosing between the Google-bundled and system versions of libraries.

        Edit the second: there isn’t a package on the binhost for chromium yet, I need to work out how to build it so that it isn’t an issue to distribute.

    • @[email protected]
      2•10 months ago

      Using binary packages — those that are offered — is missing out on a key strength of Gentoo and the primary reason one may choose it over another.

      Gentoo is about enabling choice. The choice to use non-customised binary packages to fill a need is still a choice.

    • KalciferOP
      1•10 months ago

      There is really no comparison between Gentoo and Arch outside of the “build your own system” approach

      This is essentially what I was referring to.