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:
- Does the OS installation change, and, if so, how?
- Does package installation, updates, and maintenance change, and, if so, how?
- Do system updates change, and, if so, how?
- Do you lose any potential control over the system when using the binaries, rather than compiling from source, and, if so, what?
- 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.
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.
It certainly can be noticeable, depending on where and at what you’re looking. The issue can be that making a general “yes, you’ll see a difference” statement is usually difficult; opinions of what counts as “a difference” vary wildly from person to person.
What you experience could be as small as shaving a few KiB off your executable or getting an extra 2-3 FPS in a game all the way up to “it just won’t work unless I compile it this specific way because of <insert_variable>.”