Is Arch Linux Really Faster Than Ubuntu?

[mirv]

I must be tired - I don't see the contradiction, but I'll reword anyway.
Gentoo is more easily customised after a relatively difficult setup procedure (for new people).
By setup procedure I mean the base system - before you really start adding in the extra things you want (like X, web browsers, gnome/kde/whatever, ssh, etc). I suppose my own definition of setup caused some confusion - apologies there.

[deanjo]

Gentoo is more easily customised, but requires the user to do a lot more, and results in not so simple a setup procedure

That doesn't make any sense at all. You contradict yourself in the same sentence.

[mirv]

But for people who want to try out Gentoo it does matter. It's not about installing often, it's about attracting new users. This is were first impressions matter a lot, and where Gentoo is a big *fail*.

Gentoo is not as business oriented as other distros. So I think they're more concerned with "we provide this, and those who want to use it can do so". It's not intended to hold people's hand - if someone wants to try Gentoo, they should know by now that there will be a steep learning curve at the start. It does however have a really good step-by-step installation handbook that really is quite easy to follow.
It's not a competition with anyone - it's about personal choice, kind of one of the strengths of Linux. The majority of new users will be attracted towards a more simple setup which does things for them - Gentoo is more easily customised, but requires the user to do a lot more, and results in not so simple a setup procedure, so naturally will attract a different crowd.
I don't see any of this as making Gentoo better or worse than any other distro.

[monraaf]

People who run Gentoo aren't really concerned about the initial setup time. If you're installing that often that you're super concerned about initial install time, then Gentoo isn't really suited for such things - and it's not meant to be.

But for people who want to try out Gentoo it does matter. It's not about installing often, it's about attracting new users. This is were first impressions matter a lot, and where Gentoo is a big *fail*.

[mirv]

I've never had the feeling that Ubuntu was slow. In fact when it comes to things that really matter to the ordinary desktop user, it's blazingly fast. You can pop in an Ubuntu Live-CD and have the system installed and running in 15 minutes. Combine that with the fast boot times and ease of use, and you can see why it's so popular. IMHO other distros should take note.

You guys can rant all you want about Gentoo's "superiority", but really there aren't many people out there who have the patience to wait 13 hours before their OS is done compiling just to check out if the claims from the Gentoo advocates are true. That's insane, and that's why Gentoo will always be a marginal distro.

People who run Gentoo aren't really concerned about the initial setup time. If you're installing that often that you're super concerned about initial install time, then Gentoo isn't really suited for such things - and it's not meant to be.

[monraaf]

I've never had the feeling that Ubuntu was slow. In fact when it comes to things that really matter to the ordinary desktop user, it's blazingly fast. You can pop in an Ubuntu Live-CD and have the system installed and running in 15 minutes. Combine that with the fast boot times and ease of use, and you can see why it's so popular. IMHO other distros should take note.

You guys can rant all you want about Gentoo's "superiority", but really there aren't many people out there who have the patience to wait 13 hours before their OS is done compiling just to check out if the claims from the Gentoo advocates are true. That's insane, and that's why Gentoo will always be a marginal distro.

[Apopas]

What makes Gentoo fast and light though, is not the compile optimizations but the USE flags which help you install the things you really need and keep your system tidy and clean.
USE flags is the real power of Gentoo, not the GCC flags.

[Apopas]

Gentoo probably is faster. But that required me to compile my own kernal as well. I got sick of redoing my kernel all the time. That's my main excuse for not using Gentoo any more.

Why redoing the kernel all the time? You just keep your .config around and you adjust it to the newer kernel. 10 minutes job. There is even an option to pack it inside your kernel image.

[Ex-Cyber]

http://software.intel.com/en-us/arti...c-for-the-mid/

At the bottom. Read and weep.

That's for a specific application, whose maintainer added -funroll-loops to the Makefile (presumably after benchmarking to determine that it actually improved the performance of that application). It's not part of the "recommended flags" for Atom, nor is it evidence that it's a good idea to use -funroll-loops on everything.

[deanjo]

Other than automatically distributed building, where is the difference from portage?

It also figures out dependencies, removes cleanly and easily, and all that.

I've never used a build service, but I'd imagine that it would be more complicated to set up than downloading an .ebuild file.

The advantage is that I can have nightly built packages ready for me every day in my own repository without so much a hassle building for each machine. It's especially handy where you have more then one type of architecture that you are building for and more then one flavor of linux.