Benchmarks Of The Gentoo-Based Calculate Linux

[mirv]

In the interests of saving screen space, I'll note quote allquixotic, but he's right. Some apps will run better when compiled from source, but as a whole there won't be much difference in every day usage.
There are even cases where compiler optimisations can make programs run slower (I won't delve into why as there's plenty of info out there explaining that).
There are only a handful of cases where I noticed compiled-from-source apps working faster (subjective, no numbers applied, just a "feeling" from using it): firefox, chromium, openoffice, and xbmc - and even then, the xbmc was from svn and probably shouldn't be compared and I suspect the difference with the other programs were 32bit binaries running through compatibility libs instead of native 64bit.
I personally just like the way Gentoo does things. I also don't use Gnome or KDE because I don't like either of them - I use E16, or sometimes E17; I'm far more productive with E and enjoy it much more.
This is GNU/Linux, open source, and freedom of choice. You can't benchmark that.

[locovaca]

I don't get it. Calc linux is obviously a binary distro. The main reason why Gentoo might have some performance differences is related to compiling software directly on your machine. If Michael changed CFLAGS nothing would of happened, as far as I see there wasn't any compiling involved, hence no need.

I'm not sure why Michael felt the pressure to dig out some obscure, but "Gentoo based, oooh" binary distro, bench it out and plaster "Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo" all over the article. I wouldn't mind Phoronix never benchmark Gentoo per se at all, but this kind of behaviour is quite interesting, don't you think?

If that's the case, then people need to stop beating the "Phoronix is the sux0rs because it's all Ubuntu and nobody pays attention to Gentoo" drum.

Gentoo is not a distribution. It's a meta distribution. The choice of CFLAGS and a few redundant packages (logger, cron daemon) is what makes each installation unique. There is no way you can benchmark with that many variables. Calc linux is one set of configuration variables, one that is repeatable across any computer. It *IS* Gentoo, since Gentoo is an ambiguous blob of software and configuration. Is it your Gentoo? No, probably not. And until you expose and publicize your make.conf and world file, your Gentoo will never be benchmarked.

My CFLAGS and packages were most definitely not the same as yours. Yet we both ran Gentoo. Calc is no more than one person's set of CFLAGS and packages. If that makes it a binary distro, then so is Gentoo for everyone who starts with Stage 3 tarballs and doesn't recompile their world.

[clavko]

...Calc is no more than one person's set of CFLAGS and packages...

That's right - one person's set of flags, however it's the one ment
for many families of processor, not ment for a specific one. It's not
the Gentoo way. There is a set of optimization that should be rather
trivial to select. I'd be perfectly happy with -O2, a simple march flag
and a world recompilation on both test machines. More is a plus and
less doesn't make sense.

It's not hard to do it. It's reproducible. And it should be rather
close to a typical Gentoo experience. Mind you, I do not claim that
the result should bring better performance. However, it should be clear
as daylight - compiling from source is the essence of Gentoo more than
anything else. Calculate linux is... well... let me put it like this:

"Now look, maybe your method of massage differs from mine, but,
you know, touchin' his wife's feet, and stickin' your tongue in her
Holiest of Holies, ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same
league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport."

[locovaca]

That's right - one person's set of flags, however it's the one ment
for many families of processor, not ment for a specific one. It's not
the Gentoo way.

Please explain why this is not the Gentoo way. There is nothing mentioned in their documentation about this.

What you meant to say is "This is not the way I use Gentoo." And that's fine, but simply because someone's methodology doesn't fit in with your personal use of Gentoo doesn't invalidate the other methodology.

So you like maintaining a 1:1 relationship of make.confs and computers. That's fine. Those of us who maintain hundreds of boxes, however, prefer to have one file that works across all machines. Both are Gentoo. Calc is Gentoo.

[crazycheese]

1) Calculate is Gentoo.
2) Calculate is NOT Gentoo.

If (2) would not exist Gentoo=Calculate, which would rise the question why Calculate exist.

This discussion contains a LOT of intelligent posts by people, yet no single one who actually went to wikipedia entry or even got the distro himself and spend a few minutes cat'ing /etc/make.conf and calc profile.

This is embarassing.

This ain't Gentoo discussion.

Calculate is Gentoo in terms, it is built(or more correctly - emerged) from Gentoo profile, using:
-) Settings that would fit most people
-) Programs that would fit most people
-) Some minor tools for making Gentoo life even more easier, without replacing the original tools
-) Custom GFX...

So this distro(or more correct favor or Gentoo's brother) is geared towards:
-) people who wish to see how Gentoo looks like(if they would follow Gentoo handbook all way to KDE or GNOME desktop)
-) people who agree with most settings from Calculate and think its easier to throw several apps off world, then to setup all the system and compile all the packages from scratch
-) people who appreciate Gentoo on desktop done this way.

There is nothing magical behind Calculate, it IS a precompiled and packaged Gentoo geared towards generic hardware on generic desktop. It is just prebuild already. And nobody and nothing prevents you to modify any configuration to your taste and call emerge.

Gentoo is a meta-distro. Calculate is a manifestation of ONE of the many ways Gentoo can be taken to, YET without any barriers set. Calculate is, precisely, a gentoo STAGE. The distro word is solely for the guy and his(?) company who managed to create *this*, to give gentoo a form, fitting for most people on the street, for whatever reasons they might be interested in gentoo.

All differences between Gentoo and its little brother Calc come to single word - profile. Yep, if you are running own Gentoo, switch to their (calculate) profile right inside your gentoo and emerge world. Your gentoo will be transformed to calculate. Vice versa is no problem as well.

It is no wonder Calculate is NOT shining, yet not falling behind in benchies. CFLAGS are generic, not "native", otherwise it simply wont work on generic hardware. Hey, but nobody prevents you replace single word in make.conf and just emerge the world. Pow - you have it running with native optimizations.

Despite from having identical to ubuntu CFLAGS(well, I dont really know which they used, but I assume), only software versions(incl GCC!) differ. No wonder Calculate didnt behave like fully customised, native CFLAGS compiled, steroid enhanced Gentoo-variant. It is geared towards word generic. No one prevents you change this little word and emerge world you like it.

All-in-all I think its pretty amazing for such a young distro to achieve scores very similar to major distros, without instabilities, useability issues, staying 100% gentoo inside, fitting for desktop of generic user right out of the box without any limits.

Calculate is not a Gentoo 2.0.
It is not a Gentoo fork.
It is not for (trying to) making Gentoo unneeded(like Ubuntu), in any aspect.
It is running Gentoo inside, using Gentoo technology, following Gentoo methods and nature, staying inside Gentoo hierarchy, non-interfering with Gentoo, reporting issues back to Gentoo and staying totally free as a solution.

Calculate IS something that is actually REALLY needed by Gentoo community, yet transforming original Gentoo into this would ruin its spirit. It is like stage3 Gentoo were mother and Calc were younger son with possiblity for son transform into mother at any time and compying to her every single wish.

Which other distro is capable of this? Sabayon? Oh please.

[mirv]

If people are going to be so pedantic about Calculate being based off Gentoo, then I'm going to be pedantic about something else: you don't need gnome or kde. You don't even need an X environment. Gentoo, and others of course, are more than capable of being run entirely fom the console.

[clavko]

Please explain why this is not the Gentoo way. There is nothing mentioned in their documentation about this...

...Those of us who maintain hundreds of boxes, however, prefer to have one file that works across all machines...

Oh come on. The only thing this article showed is that you can force
Gentoo to look&feel like Ubuntu and have a similar performance at it.
Now there's a shocker.

Gentoo is about tweaking your distro to match your hardware. If you look
through Gentoo Manual, there is a "make.conf" step. There is a "compile
your own kernel" step. There is choose your "DE/WM & software" step.
Calculate Linux is a "Next, Next, Finish" mindset applied to Gentoo. Yuck!

[locovaca]

Oh come on. The only thing this article showed is that you can force
Gentoo to look&feel like Ubuntu and have a similar performance at it.
Now there's a shocker.

Gentoo is about tweaking your distro to match your hardware. If you look
through Gentoo Manual, there is a "make.conf" step. There is a "compile
your own kernel" step. There is choose your "DE/WM & software" step.
Calculate Linux is a "Next, Next, Finish" mindset applied to Gentoo. Yuck!

I see there's an option for using genkernel in the official documentation. That builds a generic kernel and is endorsed by Gentoo.

According to the manual you are supposed to define CFLAGS for every program you emerge. Do you do that? They then say to set the master flags to be something General, which is exactly what Calc has done. They then go on to say that the defaults in the stage3 tarball are good enough for everyone. So Gentoo says you don't have to change the settings from a stage3 - that's YOUR choice for YOUR installation.

If YOUR installation is so great, why are you not benchmarking all of this stuff for yourself? There's no conceivable way that Phoronix can benchmark YOUR installation. They choose one group's installation, Calc, and benchmarked it. If every installation of Gentoo is unique as you suggest, but each unique installation is still Gentoo, then Calc is Gentoo because Calc is a unique but repeatable installation of Gentoo.

You can't have it both ways. Your installation cannot be Gentoo and then Calc not. You and Calc have done the exact same things; Calc has simply chosen to distribute their installation.

[clavko]

OK. You win.

[Shining Arcanine]

What Gentoo needs to focus on, if it wants to remain relevant, is ease of use. It needs a nice graphical installation wizard that asks the user questions, and based on those questions, makes the appropriate optimizations. This might help extend the time that the project remains significant, because it will bring Gentoo in line with Ubuntu as far as eschewing arcane console commands. Coupled with a solid desktop experience with GNOME or KDE, it could be made very nice indeed.

I hate to say it, but I stopped reading your post after this paragraph.Gentoo Linux's developers designed a GUI installer for Gentoo Linux about 5 years ago. Gentoo Linux's developers found that there are far too many options available in Gentoo Linux to support all of them in a GUI installer and the GUI installer was phased out because of that.

Also, as a Gentoo Linux user, I find nothing wrong with the command-line. While there are certainly ways to improve Gentoo Linux, a GUI installer is not one of them. Anyone interested in user friendliness will want to improve Gentoo Linux by modifying Portage to use faster algorithms, to automatically recompile packages affected by changes in binary compatibility and to be more helpful when USE flag dependencies cause things to break.

Other improvements would be tools to automatically detect explicitly merged non-leaf packages to allow the user to remove them and a tool to verify that global USE flags are flipped in /etc/make.conf and package-specific USE flags are flipped in /etc/portage/package.use, both with etc-update like functionality for correcting these things should they be accidents or leaving them alone if they are intentional. These two things would eliminate the majority of upgrade issues that frequently occur when USE flags and the world set (i.e. explicitly merged package list) have not been managed correctly.

Those are the main user friendliness issues in Gentoo Linux and a GUI installer would not fix any of them. The fact that you think that a GUI installer would help user friendliness suggests to me that you are not much of a Gentoo Linux user. If you were, you would know these things from experience.