Google Rolls Out OnHub Router, Powered By Gentoo Linux

[yoshi314]

Interesting to me that Google seems to prefer Gentoo over Arch, or Ubuntu for a lot of their products (ChromeOS is Gentoo as well). I wonder if its for the rolling release, or if there's a different reason.

it's trivial to roll your own binary package server for whatever architecture, it's easy to integrate custom patches.

i have a separate gentoo chroot that builds binary packages for my ancient pentium3 laptop. i get all the packages i want, built for my hardware, and without the features i would not need - this laptop is not a print station, and won't run gnome3 apps in the foreseeable future. and i get a fairly slim system that also does not use that much ram, tbh.

also, if i wanted, i could replace openrc with systemd or runit (or other init system), or glibc with uclibc/musl/dietlibc, and similarily mix and match other system bits to further tweak it to my needs.

this is why gentoo is so useful for this scenario.

all those lightweight distros i tried always lack something that i need, and building a piece of software on them is sometimes a complicated task.

you can extend it to cross compiling entire systems for other incompatible architectures with your host build server - like rpi, arm, ppc, etc; whatever your toolchain can handle.


also arch does not test its toolchain as much as gentoo. when new gcc rolls out, it's fairly quickly in arch linux repos, while gentoo digs through hundreds of bugs where packages miscompile with new gcc release because they need various patches. arch has narrower scope (mostly x86 + x86_64), gentoo has more platforms covered.

[Klassic Six]

yoshi314 .all those lightweight distros i tried always lack something that i need, and building a piece of software on them is sometimes a complicated tasks

Most of lightweight distributions are using Debian or Ubuntu.

[Ardje]

Interesting to me that Google seems to prefer Gentoo over Arch, or Ubuntu for a lot of their products (ChromeOS is Gentoo as well). I wonder if its for the rolling release, or if there's a different reason.

Those choices are purely a personal preference of the design team.
If you know gentoo well, you will use gentoo. If you know debian well, you will use debian.
<troll>If you know redhat well, you will use gentoo or debian.</troll>
Although gentoo might be a little easier to hack together a dedicated hardware project, but in this case I would have definitly not chosen gentoo, as it does not allow package installation, it allows for recipe installation to compile your software. But I think they have choosen for a closed down access point.
Software like openwrt's packaging system all has it's origins in the debian package format. And it's used in quite a number of systems, like sat receivers.
Despite that, maemo in it's reincarnation as tizen migrated from .deb to .rpm .

[schmalzler]

Although gentoo might be a little easier to hack together a dedicated hardware project, but in this case I would have definitly not chosen gentoo, as it does not allow package installation, it allows for recipe installation to compile your software.

portage allows creation and installation of binary packages. no need to compile everything on every single machine.

[yoshi314]

Most of lightweight distributions are using Debian or Ubuntu.

most != all. and if a distro has a webkit with jit , it generates sse2 instructions on x86, even if the cpu cannot handle it.

plus, there are packages that simply are built with features i do not need.

[89c51]

Google has remote access to this right?

[kaidenshi]

Google has remote access to this right?

I'd put money on it. It's got a custom Google OS, it has a TPM chip, and they'd be stupid not to use it to harvest data for targeting ads at you.

If they don't lock the bootloader (or if it's trivial to unlock) I'd be tempted to get one and put OpenWRT on it. Given it has TPM though, it may not be possible to unlock.

[SystemCrasher]

Does it haves locked boot loader? What about alternate firmwares? Getting "self updating" stuff from Google is like getting self-sustaining NSA officer in your house.

[SystemCrasher]

Why not OpenWRT, which is actually tuned to be a router OS?

Maybe because OpenWRT targets small devices with 32-64Mb RAM and something like 8Mb Flash ROM? Its kinda awkward on more powerful, more PC-like devices. E.g. you do not need crippled and minimized "ps" or "top" from busybox on machine running 1Gb RAM. But you'll be better with busybox on machine with 32Mb RAM and 8Mb flash for everything. Gentoo simply wouldn't fit it.

Also, OpenWRT has got very questonable releases policy. While it ensures device stays operational, there are no security fixes. And granted that stuff like WPA Supplicant has got critical bugs allowing remote code execution in its past, I would view it as some shortcoming of openwrt. Though I should admit any decision is a tradeoff.

[MNKyDeth]

This might be a bit off topic but...


Computer enthusiasts, Linux, windows or mac.... Will most likely go through computer hardware faster than a normal person, imo. Like me I try to reuse any older equipment in devices. So... I pass hardware down as it gets upgraded to the different devices in my house. Main computer -> (sometimes server) -> HTPC -> test server -> router.

By doing this I use PFsense. Grats to google for entering the router end of things but.... Like someone previously posted too many products out there already. Pfsense is just simply amazing and with all my old hardware I couldn't ask for a better software router/firewall.

Now... I havn't found any router out there that can compete with pfsense and I doubt googles will either.

My 2c