Source-Based Gentoo Linux Goes Binary

While Gentoo Linux is best-known as source-based Linux distribution, "our package manager, Portage, already for years also has support for binary packages," according to its web page. It notes that source- and binary-based package installations can be freely mixed.

But now... To speed up working with slow hardware and for overall convenience, we're now also offering binary packages for download and direct installation! For most architectures, this is limited to the core system and weekly updates — not so for amd64 and arm64 however. There we've got a stunning >20 GByte of packages on our mirrors, from LibreOffice to KDE Plasma and from Gnome to Docker. Gentoo stable, updated daily. Enjoy!
"We have a rather neat binary package guide on our Wiki that goes into much more detail..." the announcement points out.

The packages are cryptographically signed with the same key as the stages.

Thanks to Heraklit (Slashdot reader #29,346) for sharing the news.

Slow System Win

[crow]

This is a big win for slow systems. I love Gentoo, as it's really easy to cut out all the fluff and configure things exactly the way I want them. But on my arm64 system, it's a big pain to upgrade a few things like gcc.

It's also a big pain to upgrade my old Cray 1. :)

(See previous stories if you don't get the joke.)

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It's a big win for doing the initial install, too. It's a lot more fun to fiddle around with coming up with a new and improved set of working use flags when you're up and running than initially.

Re:

[test321]

If you're a user you probably remember the occasional LiveCD / LIveDVD that existed for this purpose (setting up quickly a new system), last released January 2017. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/P... [gentoo.org] It's great to see gentoo developing new solutions.

Re: Slow System Win

[Grokew]

There was a sign telling you not to sit on the Cray-1, you still did, so any issues you have upgrading it are your own fault, for bending the cover while sitting on it... (:P)

Philistines!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Sellouts! What next? Gentoo runs systemd?

That's it! That was the last straw. I'm going right back to CentOS.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Sellouts! What next? Gentoo runs systemd?

Developers will tire of so many files floating around /etc and consolidate the contents to a single flat database file, a registry some might call it. Some people laugh, but this will happen eventually.

Re:

[test321]

systemd is optional (like everything else in gentoo). The binary packages discussed are provided in 3 variants, one of which without dependency to systemd.

Okay, so now ...

[fahrbot-bot]

What they need is a method and utility to compare how a binary was compiled against the current system to see how "closely" they match and if re-compiling it locally would be a benefit.

Well, I guess that's okay - but

[93 Escort Wagon]

I hope you guys know you're ruining a lot of jokes.

But it did get them back in the news, at least briefly - I mean, has anyone even thought about gentoo during the past decade?

Re:

[Deal In One]

I have, on occasion.

And I used to run Gentoo on a system about 10 years ago. With all the overnight compiling, etc.

Re:

[aitikin]

I hope you guys know you're ruining a lot of jokes.

But it did get them back in the news, at least briefly - I mean, has anyone even thought about gentoo during the past decade?

Actively chose Gentoo for my Steambox and my Plex server. They have some of the best documentation still.

It Would Figure

[organgtool]

I just got done a full-system compile I started in 2019 and now I have the option of using binaries instead.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Back when I ran Gentoo, on a K6 laptop, it took less than 48 hours to rebuild the entire system. And that machine had like 64MB RAM and a slow 2.5" disk, too. That is a substantial amount of time, but well within reason. Also, if you have multiple machines in the house as so many of us do, you can use distcc to farm the compiles out to all of them.

-native

[dargaud]

I've used gentoo around 2002 and it was really slow to update back then. But nowadays I don't understand why more distros aren't source based. With the gcc -native option you get optimized code on your system.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

But nowadays I don't understand why more distros aren't source based.

It doesn't matter so much now because processors are so similar. BITD when Gentoo came about we had a whole bunch of x86 competitors which were very different under the hood, and optimizing for Cyrix or for the K6 made a huge difference. These days they all pretty much support the same extensions, and support for the newer ones only makes a difference in a small percentage of situations. You only need one or two packages to be optimized to derive most of the benefit, the libraries that do the heavy lifting.

Finally

[sinkskinkshrieks]

With reproducible builds, it should be trivial. Also, it is worth randomly (say 2% of the time) building from source to validate there is any funny business or breakage in the distributed binaries. Finally, they to add building binaries optimized for architectural subvariants of different processors. Building only a single, generic x86_64 package is so 2005.

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

s/validate there is any/validate there isn't/;s/they to add building/they need to add/

Re:

[caseih]

Is there any reason to use Gentoo over NixOS if you want reproducible builds? Or for any reason?

Re:

[gweihir]

I would say the package documentation on Gentoo is better.

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Sure, you can tune it to your CPU and gain speed and energy efficiencies.

The downside of these binary builds is that they work on every related chip with the same code, which is optomized for none of them.

The upside is megawatts of reduced compile across the globe. I'd love to see a CS/Econ comparison of the various approaches.

Sir

[theurge14]

Sir, I installed Gentoo so I could compile.

Still compiling

[dotslashdot]

I am still compiling the full install since 2002! Almost thereâ¦

Legit question, who is still using Gentoo?

[thegarbz]

I was a big fan of Gentoo 2 decades ago. Compiled from source meant you could have hyper optimised code at a time when everyone was still shipping i386 binaries for far more capable systems. But these days with ample computing power to spare (to waste) does anyone still use Gentoo as a daily driver / desktop system?

I understand maybe small special purpose system or keeping ancient hardware chugging along, but who actually uses Gentoo on the daily, and why / what is the draw for you to do so in 2024?

Re:

[equaeghe]

Yes, I am ( and have been since 2005). It has become a smoother experience every year, but I guess that holds for many distributions.

Why? Inertia is certainly part of it. Rolling-release was one reason, which still holds, although there are other distributions that do this well now as well. A feeling of control I did not have when using Debian or Suse. A nice community that helps with with any issues. User patches [gentoo.org]! Live ebuilds at selectable git tags/hashes. There's likely other things.

To summarize, using i