Gentoo Ends Out 2023 By Offering Up Binary Packages For Direct Installation

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Gentoo Ends Out 2023 By Offering Up Binary Packages For Direct Installation

The Gentoo Linux project's Portage package manager has long supported the ability to deal with binary packages while moving forward they are finally leveraging that to offer binary packages for download and direct installation...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Gentoo-Binaries-EOY-2023

[duby229]

Many packages simply don't need compiled at install time, so long as use flags and cflags are the same the binaries will be the same Just use sane cflags and keep your use flags to a bare minimum and most packages should install binaries. I been wanting Gentoo to do this for years, it only made perfect sense.

[Quackdoc]

one day gentoo will steal me from arch... one day

[Adarion]

Interesting. While the sense of Gentoo is of course that it is all about choice and building the system "your way", incl. USE flags and CFLAGS, it can be nice to have a binary release once in a while for often updated packages on slower systems. Or to check for a bug, and use the official build before reporting something.

I think I am looking forward to it.

And thanks to Michael for adding a Gentoo related news item.

[chocolate]

Good ol' Sabayon. Meanwhile, the original founder of Sabayon is doing something new with MocaccinoOS (https://www.mocaccino.org/), although it's not immediately clear what the advantages for a desktop user would be, since the website is full of buzzwords and confusing graphics.

[Ananace]

I've been running the experimental binhost work on my laptop and work desktop for a while at this point (and used Sabayon on both before as well), it's really nice to see the functionality finally rolling out properly though.
Having general packages pulled as binaries, but with the ability to build some packages from source is really the best of both worlds, and the fact that it all mixes together automatically - including with USE-flags - is really nice.

I really love not having to build any of the things using webkit, that's for certain. Such a ridiculously heavy compile those are.

[microchip8]

Ahhh Gentoo. Where you have to first build your toilet before you can take a shit. At least now, you can just quickly buy it if it's urgent!

[Nuc!eoN]

Had to double check the calender whether it's the 1st of april but it isn't! Well done gentoo!

[mdedetrich]

Oh dear, the end of the beginning is nigh.

[ElectricPrism]

Fantastic, this lowers the barrier to entry.

This is the opposite of gatekeeping and a great way to pump up the number of users.

Once inside the Gentoo Camp these users can gradually learn what they need to know instead of all upfront.

Gatekeeping is the opposite of what you want if you want to be anything other than niche.