Gentoo is for people that are masochists
Maybe 10 years ago. Firefox used to take 8+ hours to compile, now it only takes 1 hour on my laptop
last@laptop ~ $ sudo genlop -t firefox | tail Password: Thu Jun 8 10:30:01 2023 >>> www-client/firefox-102.12.0 merge time: 1 hour, 11 minutes and 59 seconds. Sun Jun 11 16:31:12 2023 >>> www-client/firefox-102.12.0 merge time: 1 hour, 14 minutes and 59 seconds. Fri Jul 7 22:52:11 2023 >>> www-client/firefox-102.13.0 merge time: 1 hour, 42 minutes and 25 seconds.That’s still totally insane. I get the appeal of compiling everything from source but it ain’t for me. Btw, Firefox is on version 115 right now. Is there any particular reason you’re going for 102, if you don’t mind me asking?
Yeah, it’s not for everyone. I actually like it though. I used Manjaro on a PineBook Pro and was really underwhelmed with the system updates only taking 30 seconds to complete. I like compiling Firefox myself because I disable EME (DRM plugin) capability at build time.
The later versions aren’t stable yet. I don’t know if they back-port any security patches or not.I’m using the ESR version of FirefoxEdit: I should probably mention that this package is the largest on my system. Nothing else takes this long for me.
How long does the Linux kernel take?
I’m not really sure, and the answer is a little complicated because I’ve been having ChatGPT trim it down for me over the past couple of days. We knocked out the networking stuff, and started on disabling support for peripherals I don’t have. I want to say it’s around 20 minutes, but some things may be cached from previous builds.
Edit: I had some time to rebuild my kernel today. I ran ‘make clean’ first, and used the ‘time’ command to generate the following:
time make -j$(($(nproc) + 1)) ... real 24m59.431s user 335m13.697s sys 39m5.877sThanks for your reply. I have to admit a stripped down kernel sounds intriguing. Maybe I’ll switch from Arch to Gentoo some day after all!
Oh, it gets a lot better than that. Every package on my system is stripped down, or modified in some way at build time.
It’s a lot like Arch, where nearly all software choices are left to the user, but you can also choose to enable/disable certain USE flags.
These are all of the USE flags you can enable or disable on a per package or system-wide basis.
Edit: Take ‘cups’ for example. I don’t use a printer, so by disabling the ‘cups’ USE flag, any software that previously had code for printing no longer has this code in the resulting binary. The software runs a little faster, has a little less bloat, and could potentially be more secure.
It’s not such a huge leap since you already know which packages to install from having to install them on Arch.
Great idea to use GPT for that! Been wanting to trim mine down for a while; will give it a shot.
With a decent CPU the kernel compiles pretty fast. I’m using a default configuration with modules disabled (compiled in) and various settings enabled/optimized for my hardware, and this is what I get:
make -j24 real 2m16.357s user 38m36.133s sys 4m26.449sTry it with ‘make clean’ first ;)
Edit: but backup your .config file, because it will be deleted
Yep that was after make clean :). Running a 12-core Ryzen 9 that’s a few years old and 64GB RAM; using 24 threads does speed it up quite a lot.
Edit: to be sure, I completely removed the source directory and re-emerged
gentoo-sourcesand got similar results
For compile or for boot?
Boot has been under 10 seconds since I got my first SSD. Entering the password to decrypt LUKS takes longer than that lol
Thanks, I appreciate your answer!
Firefox ESR, probably
You’re right, I didn’t know that.
Firefox 115 actually happens to be an ESR release, by the way. So, you can probably upgrade to that right now. You just couldn’t upgrade throughout 103–114…
That’s still totally insane.
And that’s just Firefox. Sometimes I get annoyed if pacman presents me with a long list even though it takes a few minutes max.
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To compile a web browser, they do provide you with a binary in the official Gentoo repos
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I used Arch until switched from the original sys-v init to systemd. I moved to Gentoo to escape all things systemd
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Mine take 30 minutes. I usually do it when I’m not using the machine
Yeah, it can definitely be faster. I limit how many cores portage can use, and I’m always watching Twitch or doing something else with the PC while it compiles. Plus, this is on a laptop.
Modify niceness of portage.
I’ve been using the MAKEOPTS flag in my make.conf
It’s using 10 out of 16 threads, and can compile up to 123 packages simultaneously
1 hr compile time over 10 threads? Somethings off, and you said you’re on laptop.
Those are 10 threads, so about 5 cores. The CPU governor is set to ‘powersave’, which lowers the clock speed. I try save the other 3 cores for Firefox, etc.
Hey!
We’re people who are masochists! :D
(That said, I use Arch now … by the way 🤣Will probably switch back eventually. May try Funtoo? Hm. 🤷♀)If you are a masochist, try running librebooted GNU guix
↑ This guy carefully chooses his hardware.
I’ve always found this take to be quite funny. You’re right but it is an incredible learning experience if you have the time for it. Otherwise, its incredibly stable and you can control any aspect. So I’d say more if you’re a masochist who’s also a sadist.
I find your outlook very misguided and arrogant.
There are reasons why there are so many GNU Linux flavors. Developers of those flavors make choices on the behalf of user (which reminds me of windows). Gentoo doesn’t make decisions for you, but you make decisions for yourself.
FOSS at its roots, is source. You are supposed to build all those softwares you use on your machine. All these pre built distro have given you convenience which you take for granted.
Gentoo is definitely not for a person who can’t afford a beefy machine, and once you have all your softwares and dependencies compiled and ready, you really don’t have to go through that long process again.
FOSS isn’t about building from source though. It’s about making software accessible without restrictions on who uses it and how it’s used.
By the way Gentoo is also giving you convenience compared to Slackware or building Linux from scratch.
Ah, Slackware is such a beast. No dependency management! I wonder how someone would run Gentoo/Slackware as a daily driver, maybe I’m too noob for this
I haven’t run Slackware in two decades, but back then it was sort of like, install almost everything (A, AP,N, etc) at once, have your home on a different partition and nuke-reinstall every four months.
No…the whole idea behind free software is that you can build from source and can even modify and contribute because it’s free. There’s no moral imperative to use CPU cycles and energy to do everything on your own computer.
It is pretty cool that Gentoo’s Portage extends the Ports tree concept to the base operating system, though. I used to use it but at a certain point I decided it was too much of a time suck. I hopped around distros and nowadays use Arch. If I get tired of Arch, it’ll probably be Fedora unless they go the way of Ubuntu and Windows.
I use a Linux distribution. More information is not required.
Android?
How dare you
MacOS
This guy linuxes
I use Mint. Please help me tie my shoelaces.
I’m with you.
Some of us just are happy to be on Linux at all.
Fair point :D
I use LFS btw /j
Lfs actually took me like 10 1/2 hours to finish building.
I would never use that as a daily driver.
It’s about the learning process
Writing kernel modules and changing kernel code would be a better excuse to recompile the linux kernel
Me, on Fedora, wondering when the wiretapping begins.
(I’m hoping they step it back, else it’s Debian for me 🙃)
If that makes you feel better, the proposed telemetry as yet to be approved by the Fedora board and in all cases it would be opt-in (off by default). Debian is great and it has been my main for many years, but Fedora is more suitable for daily use thanks to its more frequent update schedule (my opinion). I would be sad to go back to Debian on my desktop and laptop :(
What’s your problem with Debian? Use Flatpack to get the latest version of your apps you should be okay.
Flatpak gnome? Flatpak mesa? Some core utilities are not that simple to upgrade. Why bother to fiddle with Backports and unstable repos when you get the fresh stuff out of the box with Fedora, without sacrificing on robustness?
I switched to Fedora when I got myself a new AMD GPU after Doom eternal came out, and I was frustrated to miss out on some performance because of older mesa drivers. I would switch back now to Debian bookworm, it would probably not make a difference anymore as my hardware is several years old. Still I find the experience with Fedora to be smoother and well polished overall.
I get your point… but advocating for Fedora is sending people into opt-out telemetry. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/07/fedora-considering-adding-in-privacy-preserving-telemetry/
Or just use the #nix package manager.
Isn’t the kernel much older over at Debian? So newer hardware will have struggles getting some things to work with Debian if unlucky.
Debian 12 is on longterm 6.1 kernel and 6.3 and 6.4 are the current stable versions. Frankly I never had issues with Debian’s kernel version, unless you have some very specific use case it shouldn’t affect you. Debian always goes for stability and security above the latest shinny thing that that’s precisely the reason it works so well.
Oh then im wrong then. I have specific end use case so I just assumed it was a much older kernel considering their conservative response towards GNOME and etc.
You aren’t technically wrong, Debian will be “stuck” with 6.1 for some time time now, but there’s also ways to have the latest kernel in Debian, most of them are about going for the unstable / backports repositories. The thing is that once you go that road you might lose stability comfort that Debian provides and that that point why not simply go with Arch?
Thin end of the wedge. It would obviously be opt-in, off by default, to start with. Then you swap that over for new installs, so that long-term users aren’t affected and don’t complain. Then you make it on by default for everyone, since most installs are on already and you might as well.
That’s what I hoping for, because it’s sick being nearly up to date while being so stable and user friendly at the same time.
Gentoo was a lot of fun back in college. Broke a lot. Learned a lot.
Now I use Fedora.
Fake news! Gentoo would still be at the train station loading its cargo for at least a week.
emerge that world, pls.
emerge -uDN @ trainstation
Emerge!
I use NixOS BTW.
New linux users sure do love to compare epeens dont they?
Thats probably just a tech thing in general lol. The meme is a joke. It’s been on my phone for awhile and I just wanted to contribute something.
Gentoo is pretty fucking cool but I love fedora too :D
All distros are great, even that Hannah Montana one is better than Windows :)
https://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/
I had really hoped you were kidding but ran a search knowing you weren’t, so my disappointment is my fault alone.
UwUntu
I’m minty fresh, so minty that I use Linux mint…… it so mint
I’m not going to judge anyone who wants to compute in longhand. I’m glad Gentoo exists for those who need or want it, but I’m not there at this time. Arch has gotten too user friendly to even jokingly flex at these days anyway. Ex: I use Arch and I’m a dumdum BTW.
Third train: HAHA I USE NIXOS B. T. W.
