• Jesus_666@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          It’s also a bunch of scripts that automate the operation of said compiler.

          Gentoo is not for people who like to compile software; it’s for people who like to watch as software is compiled.

      • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s very controllable.
        You start out with control over everything, but that also means you have to do everything and know everything. Then you can hand back that control by automating on your terms, and gentoo provides a lot of tools for that.
        But you always have that confidence that when something is weird, you can go back, take the control, see what happens, redo the automation. Or keep it manual.
        Gentoo won’t ever touch your config files (It proposes changes you approve), and if something happens you didn’t want you can always trace it back to your own mistakes.

        I’ve never gotten the same feeling of being in control with any other distro. There is always that time it fucks up my ssh config, or breaks due to some oddity I chase back down to a decision by some maintainers.

        It’s stable only based on your decisions and skill. It will make you a lot better at using linux. But also if you don’t have the time, or the will to keep automating and scripting and learning new things, then you won’t be able to use it and you’ll have a really bad time.

        It does bring automation but only up to a still very manual level. You can’t go “fuck this shit mode” and turn it into opensuse with a config option. For example you can do your own kernel, or add a few changes to a default kernel and use it without init system, or follow a tutorial to pull default binaries and just have what most other distros have, but you won’t find an installer to check that as an option, you are forced to still understand what components you are putting in where, connecting how, automating with what commands and tools.

        Also protip if you do your own kernel start with the binkernel config not the default the fresh kernel repo starts out on. You’ll never find all the footguns autoconfigured to make your system weirdly choppy. And recompiling stuff you forgot in a module then loading that into the old kernel usually works but can crash your system.
        Change all the options, be my guest, but at least start from a working state so you have a chance of knowing what you fucked up and which flag you didn’t understand.

            • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
              0·
              2 months ago

              Not really

              Btw Gentoo has binary cache, you can also have your own binary cache so build stuff on one machine, deploy on 100

              NixOS is hosted on Github which is kinda insane.

              Also it is very hard to do general compiler optimizations or compile your own kernel on NixOS for reasons

          • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            0·
            2 months ago

            Yeah, on some fundamental level.
            Most linux distros would be very moddable repairable off-the-shelf cars. LFS would be your diy project with various guides. And gentoo would be a parts garage with their own guides and precompiled kits of components, so you can either follow those sets and build a more off-the-shelf car or diverge at any point for any section and run wild. But also you can still use the machine shop of the store and they offer to custom build some consumables for you and keep shipping them.

      • cadekat@pawb.social
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s a rolling release, but more stable than arch. It has a lot of features for customizing your software (useflags, custom patches, etc.) and is a great way to learn a lot about Linux.