Gentoo or Arch

i've used arch, but for a very short time.

i've started out with gentoo, and did many gentoo installs since 2002, mostly stage1 installs (back when you had a hundred something page manual), this is how i learned.

gentoo is much faster to me, crazy optimization compile flags, only enabling services you need, negative USE flags (-kde) to only install deps and features that you will use, etc.

portage

community is great, has always been so active and very very knowledgeable. i like the feeling of being guided by pros, and not just users, since users of gentoo are by default and by force: very experienced with the environment.

very very very customizable.

that's it.

hth.

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I agree with all of that. The only problem I have with Portage is that the stable tree has such old apps. I have tried running keyworded but my system always breaks somewhere.

I've been curious of any differences between the two myself, besides compiling things in Gentoo, and not so much in Arch. I've also been interested in trying some version of Slackware...maybe...not sure about that one yet.

I'm still a newbie with Linux in general, so can't help much with the decision, HardwaterH4ck3r. I would assume Arch would provide better performance, since it seems that it was essentially made for that purpose. Again, I know nothing of either; just what I heard. I'd probably go with thiussat's recomendations. He seems to know his Linux.

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I don't fully understand your statement; could you elaborate? Once you compile anything in Gentoo, is there a difference between software already compiled in Arch? Is it customized for your machine?

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Theoretically with Gentoo you can set all of the GCC optimization flags so that all of the software compiles specifically for your CPU architecture. Binary distros (binary meaning that the software comes precompiled) typically set the default flags to accommodate all possible x86 architectures. So this means compiling it to work with usually a i386. Obviously the person with a Quad i7 isn't going to want software compiled for a 32 bit i386. Sure, it will work, but it won't be as fast. That's the theory.

I say theoretically above because there is debate about how much optimized GCC flags really help in terms of performance. Many claim it doesn't help that much especially with newer hardware. However, I think most people agree that the "Gentoo way" can help old hardware run faster than it would if one installed Ubuntu or, especially, Windows on it.

@HardwaterH4ck3r: Don't mean to hijack, hope any of this discussion helps the OP.

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Oh, wow. I didn't realize a lot of that, and certainly didn't know that you could optimize it to run on very old/new hardware. Considering it's what they boast, I figured Arch was the one to use for either situation. I may give Gentoo a try after all.

Also, I seem to recall you saying in some other post that there were rumors of higher up's who maintain Gentoo having some sort of rivalry. Do you think that Gentoo will remain in use for a while? Is there even a possibility of it going away in the near future? I don't want to devote my time to a sinking ship, so to speak.

By the way, thanks for the info.

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See, now I would have told him to install from the System Rescue CD. The minimal Gentoo ISO is pretty buggy if you ask me.

Slackware is like the bumblebee. It shouldn't be able to haul ass but it does. It works on i386 and up. I've run Slackware for years and I recently added Slamd64 to my production. I would say try Slamd64 if you want a fast, flexible distro on a 64 bit box. The Slackware way is you get a good running base system from precompiled binaries and then you build your own apps how you want. You have all the tools you need to compile anything at any level of optimization. Slackware is much faster to bring up then Gentoo (I can usually do a new, clean custom install on a new box in about 20 minutes).

If you benchmarked the stock Slackware against a custom-tuned Gentoo built by someone who knows what he's doing, I don't think anyone would try to say Gentoo wouldn't be faster. The question is, is it faster enough to be worth the effort? Only you can decide and you have to test it on your own machine with your own workload or you're just pissing in the wind. It probably doesn't make much difference to have a smaller faster kernel if 90% of your use is surfing the internet.

The main difference between Slackware and Arch is Slackware has a release schedule where Arch is rolling release. Slackware still works on i386 and Arch is targeted at only i686 and above. Slamd64 is a 64 bit multilib clone of Slackware that runs great on Core 2 machines. Slackware and Slamd64 are rock solid. They never break and they never go down, ever. I run my boxes 12-15 hours a day and if I had better cooling I would just never turn them off at all.

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I already have a Gentoo installation that, IMHO is perfectly optimized for my system (I have about an 18 second boot time...soo....yeah...)

I was answering the guy who said maybe he would try Slackware.

I don't see too many guys going from Slackware to Gentoo, but I do see a lot of exhausted ex-Gentoo guys on the Slackware forums

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If you've ever booted up Gentoo and didn't realize that you could have done SOMETHING better, then you aren't doing it right.

LOL yeah it is definitely a distro for people who like to tweak to the max Probably a good distro for the OC crowd but surprisingly most people seem very WInbloze co-dependent and don't want to spend any time on software.

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Eww...kde makes me woozie!

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I see. Well that eases my mind some.

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Interesting, I'll look into both. Thanks, guys.

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Wow, thanks guy! Now I'm torn, though. I was pretty set on Gentoo after what thiussat said, but now I may be temped to run both. I may try it out on an older rig after I get Gentoo set up on my main one. Thanks for the input!

Again HardwaterH4ck3r, don't mean to hijack, as Slack wasn't part of the OP. Originally, I was very interested in Arch vs. Gentoo, as well. I'm sure I'll try Arch one of these days.

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Thats' a good point. I would imagine one could argue that point about most "advanced" Linux distros, though.

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I know what you mean. I am starting to realize that fact more and more. I mean, without the ability to customize/modify and OS, the rig is essentially just a space heater that can play YouTube.

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How are you liking KDE 4.2 and Fedora 10?

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lol I felt the same way with KDE 3.X for some reason. At a glance, it reminded me of what a Teletubbie would use.

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This is my viewpoint. I love Gentoo and used it for quite a while, but as of current simply don't have the time to make it work to its full potential so I am running the latest Jaunty alpha for simplicity's sake.

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KDE 4.2 is the best desktop environment I have ever used. Bar none. KDE 4.2 has finally caught up to Gnome in gadgets (plasmoids) and looks better overall and is more intuitive.

Oh, and it comes with composting and many of the features of compiz-fusion enabled by default. I don't even use compiz-fusion now.