In surprise move, Gentoo Linux starts offering binaries

Gentoo now offers 20-plus gigabytes of pre-compiled binaries, from desktops to office suites, to speed up installations and updates. In news so unexpected that the Reg FOSS Desk originally thought it was an oddly timed April Fool prank, the Gentoo project revealed the move just before the end of December in a post titled …

[trevorde]

How to compile from source

* download source

* run cmake

* download older version of compiler

* run cmake (again)

* download source for missing libraries

* repeat several times

* run cmake (again)

* run make

* fix header include, library & output paths, environment variables

* run make (again)

* set optimisations for your CPU + system

* run make (again)

* run binary

* create config + default files + environment variables

* run binary (again)

* immediate SEG_FAULT & core dump

[AJ MacLeod]

Re: How to compile from source

Not saying I don't recognise that, but one of the beauties of Gentoo is that pretty much all the drudgery is handled automatically and failed builds are very rare indeed (particularly if you stick reasonably closely to the "stable" branch.)

The biggest benefit for me is that my system is always up to date and only contains those packages and services I actually want; the biggest optimisation is not necessarily in terms of CPU flags but rather in cutting out large swathes of stuff I just don't want. Binary distros have to cater to as many as possible so tend to build in the kitchen sink too just in case.

Personally I already use (through Gentoo) binaries for one or two things that are really tedious to compile, such as web browsers; everything else just gets compiled in the background and if it wasn't for the fact I'd started the process I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even notice it was happening...

[trevorde]

Re: How to compile from source

* fire up gdb (gnu debugger)

* spend 3 days fixing crash

* submit patch upstream

* crash still present 6 releases later

[ldo]

Re: How to compile from source

If you are doing a build of something for which your distro already has a package, then starting with “apt-get build-dep package” should get you most of the dependencies you need (excepting only those for the extra features you want not in the prebuilt package).

[Steve Graham]

Re: How to compile from source

Whoosh! The sound of someone completely missing the point.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: How to compile from source

"...for which your distro has a package...starting with apt-get...should get you most..."

Only if your distro is debian based.

[ldo]

Re: Only if your distro is debian based.

Most of them are.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: Only if your distro is debian based.

Not the one this article is about.

[ldo]

Re: Only if your distro is debian based.

This one already has its own automated procedures for building from source!

[ldo]

“A New Version Of Portage Is Available”

I remember that message coming up just about every time I fired up emerge, telling me to update emerge itself before doing anything else.

It was fun for a while. But it could take much of a weekend to recompile something like KDE. And I think I got some dependencies wrong, so it didn’t quite work right.

At that point, I decided to switch to Debian Unstable. I still wanted some bleeding cutting-edge goodies , but with the convenient of prebuilt binaries.

Though I still build some things from source. For example, with FFmpeg, you can set both --enable-gpl and --enable-nonfree, and end up with a build that is marked “unredistributable”. So no distro could offer such a combination of features in a prebuilt package.

Blender is kind of fun: a fast-moving target where the distro package is never enough. Sure, I can download a prebuilt binary from blender.org. But I want it to not include its own Python, but to to interface to my system Python instead, so they can share installed modules. That requires building it myself.

[chuckufarley]

Gentoo has made great progress...

...Towards making the Stable branch actually stable. In the vast majority of cases people will at most need to adjust their "USE flags" which govern which features are enabled when compiling a given package. See https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/USE_flag for docs if you have never tried it. One of the problems with a source based distro is that if a file becomes corrupt or if a system's software is years out of date there may not be a clear and easy path to get the system back to a stable and updated state. So for years Gentoo has offered the "tinderbox" or unoptimized binaries that can be downloaded to help recover a system. However these only covered the base system and not even the most commonly used programs in the Portage tree. I see these new binaries as not only a time saver but also a simple and effective way for neophytes to troubleshoot. If a program is misbehaving, just download the binaries and try to run it. It it still fails then you either have a deeper problem or the problem is something that needs a bug report.

Personally I don't see myself using it but it's really nice to know it's there. If a person is running lower end hardware and wants to get up and running ASAP this is a wonder path forward. Otherwise you need to do some extra (although not too hard) work. For example my home server even has a carefully curated Gentoo VM that serves as a remote package compiler for my laptop via distcc. Both approaches are elegant solutions in my eyes.

[Bob Dunlop]

Gentoo is very little about CPU optimisation these days, it much more about package configuration.

Don't have a bluetooth interface, why should cups or ALSA or any other package be carrying the baggage for bluetooth support?

Or a braille keyboard?

Or a smart card interface?

Or bigger system choices.

Systemd or something simpler?

X or Wayland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our long-in-the-tooth in-house Linux started life as Gentoo a very long time ago. For a while it was quite lightweight, but lacking in useful features. And over the years with things being added in and the main supporters of it leaving it's grown to be a bit more of a pain to deal with (plus not being supported by loads of software we now have to run). So gradually we're rebuilding all the servers with CentOS/RHEL.

Once upon a time I did fire up a VM and go through the process of building/configuring it all. Like many things it was an interesting intellectual exercise (eg can I do it?), but not something I'd personally look to do again. I can see why some may like that sort of fine-grained control over things though.

[ldo]

Re: CentOS/RHEL

Bit late for that, isn’t it?

If you want a nice, boring, stable server setup, try Debian. That’s what my clients use.