Arch Linux 2009.08 Benchmarks

[Apopas]

You'd use the Arch Build System to trivially modify build options. Of course, chances are someone has already created the build script you want.

But now we enter again in the world of source where compilation takes place. So if you are gonna do this you understand why someone choosed gentoo which masters in things which have to do with compile and solve depedencies.

[yoshi314]

You'd use the Arch Build System to trivially modify build options. Of course, chances are someone has already created the build script you want.

in case of complex packages (like mplayer) things are not so trivial.

e.g. you want enable some new feature in mplayer, you have to

1. add/change --enable- or --with- configure flag in the PKGBUILD.
2. try building
3. install missing dependencies, fix up the pkgbuild to include these dependencies
4. try building again
5. if there are missing dependencies, go back to 3, or fix the sources, in case of build error.
6. in case you get stuck - wait for someone else who'll do it, or give it up.
7. success

in case of gentoo, you have to change one environment variable, and that's pretty much it. changing it alters dependencies, and the package manager takes care of it.

most well-written ebuilds cover all possible build option combinations for their package. (mplayer ebuild probably covers 95% of configure combinations).

also ebuilds can require their dependencies to be built with certain features enabled or disabled. e.g. amarok2 requires that mysql is built with "embedded" feature. you just cannot do that in archlinux.



the problem with arch linux ABS is - PKGBUILDS are static scripts. sometimes changing them involves a lot of work. gentoo ebuilds are more flexible in this regard - you need to alter the USE variable to make them build software with different set of features.

[nanonyme]

I wish they'd start compiling programs with directfb support in binary distros too nowadays that KMS is coming...
Edit: Oh, crap. It can apparently use fbdev anyway.

[BlackStar]

Mplayer in gentoo has these options you can enable or disable:
3dnow X a52 aac aalib alsa ass cddb cdio dirac directfb dts dv dvd dvdnav enca encode esd faac faad fbcon ggi gif iconv jpeg libcaca live mad mmx
mng mp2 mp3 network openal opengl osdmenu oss png quicktime rar real rtc schroedinger sdl shm speex sse sse2 theora tremor truetype unicode vdpau
vorbis x264 xscreensaver xv xvid 3dnowext (-altivec) bidi bindist bl cdparanoia cpudetection custom-cflags custom-cpuopts debug dga doc dvb dxr3 ftp gmplayer ipv6 jack joystick ladspa lirc lzo md5sum mmxext nas nut opencore amr% pnm pulseaudio pvr radio samba ssse3 (-svga) teletext tga v4l v4l2 (-vidix) (-win32codecs) xanim
xinerama xvmc zoran (-nemesi%*)" VIDEO_CARDS="mga nvidia vesa s3virge tdfx"
so if I only have xvid videos in my disk I can tell to gentoo to build MPlayer with only xvid, alsa and nvidia support. Thus no other depedencies will be ever built. How do I enable/disable these features in Arch?

You'd use the Arch Build System to trivially modify build options. Of course, chances are someone has already created the build script you want.

[Apopas]

This is a matter of distro design, not a difference between binary and source distros. Arch is binary distro that behaves exactly like Gentoo in this regard. Nothing is enabled by default unless *you* enable it, and it's trivial to disable stuff you don't want anymore.

Mplayer in gentoo has these options you can enable or disable:
3dnow X a52 aac aalib alsa ass cddb cdio dirac directfb dts dv dvd dvdnav enca encode esd faac faad fbcon ggi gif iconv jpeg libcaca live mad mmx
mng mp2 mp3 network openal opengl osdmenu oss png quicktime rar real rtc schroedinger sdl shm speex sse sse2 theora tremor truetype unicode vdpau
vorbis x264 xscreensaver xv xvid 3dnowext (-altivec) bidi bindist bl cdparanoia cpudetection custom-cflags custom-cpuopts debug dga doc dvb dxr3 ftp gmplayer ipv6 jack joystick ladspa lirc lzo md5sum mmxext nas nut opencore amr% pnm pulseaudio pvr radio samba ssse3 (-svga) teletext tga v4l v4l2 (-vidix) (-win32codecs) xanim
xinerama xvmc zoran (-nemesi%*)" VIDEO_CARDS="mga nvidia vesa s3virge tdfx"
so if I only have xvid videos in my disk I can tell to gentoo to build MPlayer with only xvid, alsa and nvidia support. Thus no other depedencies will be ever built. How do I enable/disable these features in Arch?

[RealNC]

To the question of whether I consider Gentoo as a hobby, I'd say yes. Though it only became a hobby after I used it for a while. I was on SuSE Linux and later openSUSE before I came to Gentoo. Those didn't offer any incentives to become my hobby Gentoo offered so many tweaking possibilities that at some point I was simply interested in them. Then I ended up fixing bugs and write new ebuilds and submit them to Gentoo and/or upstream. So I guess this makes it a hobby because it's kinda fun.

Edit:
I never submitted any patches to SuSE/openSUSE. Ever. And I did find bug there too, but the work needed to even attempt to fix them was boring, so I never really felt like doing it.

[BlackStar]

That's actually imo the best part of Gentoo. It's very far customizable and you don't end up collecting garbage over time if you pay attention to what you're doing. (compare hard dependencies vs USE-flag-controlled dependencies) Even though I don't currently bother keeping one such a system, it's imo the most pro-choice distro I've tried.
If you want to disable enabled-by-default stuff in binary distros, you end up compiling loads of the userland there too so programs won't end up being linked against stuff you don't want them to. (so you can safely remove the "dependencies") And binary distro environments usually aren't really designed for that to be trivial. Gentoo is.

This is a matter of distro design, not a difference between binary and source distros. Arch is binary distro that behaves exactly like Gentoo in this regard. Nothing is enabled by default unless *you* enable it, and it's trivial to disable stuff you don't want anymore.

[nanonyme]

I have a desktop pc more than 5 years old. It's 64 bit, from the first 64 bit proccessors that came to light. It's nice, I don't need something better.

That's actually imo the best part of Gentoo. It's very far customizable and you don't end up collecting garbage over time if you pay attention to what you're doing. (compare hard dependencies vs USE-flag-controlled dependencies) Even though I don't currently bother keeping one such a system, it's imo the most pro-choice distro I've tried.
If you want to disable enabled-by-default stuff in binary distros, you end up compiling loads of the userland there too so programs won't end up being linked against stuff you don't want them to. (so you can safely remove the "dependencies") And binary distro environments usually aren't really designed for that to be trivial. Gentoo is.

[BlackStar]

yeah, i think the biggest myth about gentoo is that your computer is "locked" or unusable when package manager builds the software. which is untrue.

the most silently omitted advantage of source based distribution is that by building eveything on user's machine, it works around a lot of problems with binary redistribution of certain packages (e.g. dvdcss support, mozilla branded software, IDEA algorithm, various patented multimedia codecs).

while most distributions provide those features in external repositories, gentoo can have them in the main package tree and leave their activation to the user.

I fail to see the distinction. It doesn't make any difference whether they are in a repo called "extras" or "main" - the user has to activate the software manually in both cases.

[yoshi314]

yeah, i think the biggest myth about gentoo is that your computer is "locked" or unusable when package manager builds the software. which is untrue.

the most silently omitted advantage of source based distribution is that by building eveything on user's machine, it works around a lot of problems with binary redistribution of certain packages (e.g. dvdcss support, mozilla branded software, IDEA algorithm, various patented multimedia codecs).

while most distributions provide those features in external repositories, gentoo can have them in the main package tree and leave their activation to the user.