[elija]

Gasps in surprise!

What you didn't say is why you deleted the partition.

Ah you did say... Just in stages.

You have my admiration. I did look at Gentoo at one point but decided that
I didn't have the time - nor frankly the will to have a go. I just wish it had
been about when I was younger and far more likely to spend the time

[ozar]

Originally Posted by Manchunian

However, as for the install there is a BIG difference: Gentoo is much, much longer and more difficult! I started yesterday lunchtime, and finished at midnight!

Exactly... I've always found Gentoo to be far too time consuming for my own tastes. I've installed it with total success 4 or 5 times in the past, but having it take the better part of an entire weekend to get fully installed and tweaked is just too much for me. It's certainly never been noticeably any faster than Arch or Slackware on my machines, even after extensive testing with different compile flags and such.

Anyway, I'm very glad it's an option for those that like it and hope it turns out all good for you.

[Manchunian]

Well, it is time consuming and I wouldn't bother if I didn't have my Debian partition to fall back on. It means I can do it in my own time. When I don't need to use my computer, I can let Gentoo do its thing. When I've got a fully working system, I can make a balanced decision. I doubt its noticeably faster than Slackware or Archlinux too, although in real terms there have been tests done that show it to be a very superb piece of kit, but its not the speed factor that pushes me to try so much. I think its a bit like reading Ulysees: everyone says they'll do it one day, but most don't because they know they're in for a long and tiring experience. But when you come out of it, you feel good for having completed it. And installing Gentoo really does shake your Linux you: you need every grain of Linux experience to carry it off. I feel I've learned a hell of a lot, and I haven't even got a working system yet!

[Manchunian]

OK, don't anyone say "I told you so!" I've decided that Gentoo is not worth the bother - at least as far as I'm concerned. It's a great distro and I understand why there are people that love it, but it's just far too time consuming. For example, yesterday I decided to install VLC - yes, I've just got to the point where I can start installing nice-to-have apps rather than just backbone stuff! For goodeness sake, it took over two hours (probaly closer to three actually) - and then I realised that I'd cocked up the flags and I had to start again. Since I've started my little adventure with Gentoo, I've been regularly going to bed late, waiting for programs to finish compiling - and I'm shattered!
So, I've nevertheless been able to compare the performance between Archlinux and Gentoo. What do I think? Well, they're very close - but I have to say that I do find Archlinux just that little bit faster. I'm sure I could get Gentoo to run faster than Archlinux if I really wanted to - but at what cost?

[kveldulf980]

Agreed. Gentoo is great and all, but it takes FOREVER to get it up and runnig, to update it, to test out that new piece of software on it, etc. I have only been using Arch for the last few days but I have to say that I think I will be a long time convert, I can't imagine a better distro coming along for a while. An experienced user should be able to get a fully functioning box up and going in a few hours, with a DE and all. Pacman is terrific, the vanilla-ness of the software is beautiful, and the ability to run it just as you would Slack of BSD makes it one of the most functional, fast, simple distros I have ever used. I think it took something like an hour and half to download/burn the iso, perform the install, install and configure xorg and xfce, get the wireless and audio kicking the way I like, and begin really working as usual. All the daemons are right where they should be (for those of us who are used to BSD) and the rc.conf couldn't possibly be easier to edit. The thing boots to desktop in something like 40-45 seconds max, no residual grinding at all. All in all, I couldn't possibly be more impressed.

You could (and I have) use Gentoo, but you will spend way more time in compiling than you will save in running, so why bother? I will still be using Slack/BSD for serverware, but I have a new desktop fav.

[Manchunian]

Yes, this is exactly what I've discovered. I think Archlinux isn't only one of the fastest distros out there, but it's also one of the most user-friendly I've ever seen. Just to settle this in my own mind once and for all, I'm now downloading another one of those high-perfomance distros - Yoper. We'll see how it compares, but methinks I'll be back with Arch soon. I'm just debating with myself whether or not to try Crux too - I'm sure Dapper Dan will have something to say about that!

Edit: I'd be interested to know how you find Archlinux speed compared to Gentoo kveldulf980, and any other Gentoo users.

[kveldulf980]

Honestly, I don't have the time to do a side by side benchmark (since it takes forever to get a Gentoo box up) but just from normal usage, I would say that they are just about equal for equal set-ups. The packages that saw the biggest performance boost in Gentoo, especially when starting up (Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.) are the programs I am least likely to want to compile since they take hours and hours to get through, so I typically didn't build them but instead used precompiled. As for, say, booting into xfce or gnome, I get the feeling that if there is a difference it couldn't be much more than a second or two, and with most normal programs that drops to fractions of a second. And even then, I'm not sure I think Gentoo is actually faster.

As far as I can tell, Arch is the fastest overall distro I have ever used. And for me, it has to be the easiest I have ever used, and that is really saying something, I have been a linux user for ~13 years. To top that, it is also without any doubt the most user friendly distro I have used (for this user anyway). Compare that to Gentoo which is one of the more complex distros to use regularly (e.g. your uber-leet USE flags are bound to screw up something eventually) and also not very user friendly (it requires constant, time-consuming maintenence to keep it up to date) and I think there is no real debate. For the average desktop-Linux user in the "advanced" category (doesn't mind using vi, understands /etc, has experience with BSD style daemon structure, etc.) who doesn't have all day and night to devote to upkeep, Arch is wayyyy better than Gentoo. Of course, this comes with the disclaimer that Gentoo has a ton of its own purposes, it is great to learn the ropes on, you can build a beautifully elegant server (web, file, so on) that is as air tight as you want to make it, and it provides a nice environment for testing sources and providing bug reports to projects, to name a few. But, all in all, I don't think I could justify using Gentoo over Arch if you have a job or kids or any other hobbies. In fact, I am impressed enough to say that I don't think that it would be easy to justify a desktop Slack box over Arch, pacman is amazing, and this comes from a very long time Slack pusher.

Maybe more interesting would be the performance of Arch compared to Debian, particularly 'testing'. From what I can tell, from a similar setup Arch is plenty faster, with pacman trumping apt as well. Any thoughts?

[Manchunian]

Interesting what you have to say. I can't really talk about Debian testing, but I can talk about Debian stable. Now, like you're a Slack-pusher, I consider myself a Debian one. I love the reliability of it - but it comes at a price. Debian is miles behind the other distros when it comes to the state of its applications. I'm still using Openoffice 2.0 on this partition, and 2.4 on my soon-to-be-gone Gentoo one.
When it comes to speed, Debian is pretty good - especially when you use a light environment like Fluxbox or IceWm. However, Arch beats it hands down on this front. I did do a small, very un-scientific experiment a few weeks ago that I posted here.

[kveldulf980]

Debian (and Slack and the BSDs for that matter) are super stable, yes, but they aren't nearly as fast, which seems to lead to the natural question of why. I think I have two explanations that seem to give a sufficient answer, and also seem to answer why Arch is probably a better overall desktop distro. First, old packages aren't necessarily faster, not even on older hardware. Newer versions not only add functionality and patch security issues and bugs but also many projects work to streamline their code from release to release, often creating a product that runs faster as the version numbers increase (not always true, but you get the drift). Second, the more stable distros build their packages on more stable hardware in order to create more stable, more portable packages. As a result, the Apache that comes with Debian will likely work just fine on my old 386, while the Apache that comes with Arch almost certainly will not. The result of all this is exactly what we see. Debian et al. are rock hard and almost always run exactly as expected when properly configured, while Arch leaves them in the dust speed-wise, although it gives up some of the stability and assuredness (an example would be the recent gpm upgrade issue, something you wouldn't expect to happen in Deb). In the end, as far as I'm concerned I am willing to sacrifice a pretty good deal of "stability" for a jump in speed, ease, and usability, which I get with Arch. And as to that stability, since I am running common, modern hardware, I doubt I will see any huge problems that I won't be able to simply work around. Again, all that said I likely wouldn't trust Arch to a server or any other system-critical box, for that I'll be sticking to the more hardened distros.

[Manchunian]

Also, the standard kernel that ships with Debian has everything built into it - which slows it down somewhat. Let's not knock Debian speed too much, though. I find it faster than Ubutnu or Mandriva, for instance, as it calmes down on the CPU-intensive GUI. However, I certainly agree that Arch leaves Debian in the dust.
Debian bomb-proofness is the reason why I've decided to leave a Debian partition whatever I decide to switch to when I've finished my distro-hopping. I know that whatever happens with my main distro, I'll always have my old friend Debian to fall back on if things ever go wrong.