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.
Limited experience with the binary repo but here goes.
I switched over a samba and sftp file server that I don’t need to customise with use flags. Along with installing and configuring gentoo-update from the guru repo to handle updates this box pretty much looks after itself now except for kernel updates/reboots and config updates which I need to look in to. I noticed when I enabled the binary repo and updated the system that a lot of packages if not most were available as binaries.
I switched over a desktop system that is basically a tv these days (it’s an old dell aio with ok speakers etc). This box has plasma installed and I noticed that some packages don’t appear to be included in the binary repo such as the infamous qtwebengine. I say appear because I haven’t delved too far into it. I can always exclude the packages that pull in this and other bottlenecks if I want so I might go down that route eventually. Again, a lot of packages just get installed from the binary repo if they are available but I couldn’t tell you percentage wise or which ones.