Paul Bredbury <no@spamthanks.com> wrote:
> * Some packages filter optimization flags because it's easier than
>> correcting the bugs that cause the package to fail to run correctly
>> if compiled with them.
>
> So? Does any distro have the manpower to *fix the bugs* in 10,000
> packages?

If there's known bugs (at system level, even), the package should go in
~arch and not arch. It's as simple as that.

>> Absolutely not. If a package doesn't work correctly after setting
>> optimization flags, it's either because of a bug in the compiler, or
>> a bug in the package. If the former, the maintainer should file a
>> bug on it and document *why* the flags are set they way they are in
>> the ebuild. If the latter, the package does *NOT* belong in /stable/.
>
> What is the point of compiling a program with CFLAGS which will cause
> it to immediately segfault?

To verify that the bug exists, so you can report on it and find it?

>> You don't. You follow standard build procedures, whether it's xmkmf,
>> configure, or perl Makefile.PL. Which you have to do if you write
>> your own .ebuild too, which means doing that *AND* write an .ebuild
>> for it.
>
> Who is this "you"? I am not the package author, I am a person trying
> to compile and run the ebuild.

I take it English is not your native language, or did you just flunk
English? "You" is the informal indiscriminate pronoun, used, like the
formal "one", to refer to non-specific people or people in general.

>>> There is a reason why distros use "package management systems"
>>> rather than tell everyone to "make install".
>>
>> There's several reasons. A major one is to distinguish themselves
>> from other distros. Why use A if it's no different from B?
>
> What point are you trying to make?

A comment that shows an example of an inaccuracy in the above post.
What point are /you/ trying to make?

> Which distro would *you* prefer to Gentoo - Sourcemage, or LFS?

That's like asking what car one would prefer, a Hummer, a Rolls Royce or
a Lotus? The question makes no sense without knowing what it's going to
be used /for/.

--
*Art

On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 03:24:45 -0800, Hugh Janus wrote:

<<snip>>

> 1.) Is it really faster or is that just a myth? My machine is an AMD64
> 3400 with 1GB of ram.

This is an old test but I still found it interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/6k2fp

Also, what do you do with your machine? At times I edit 10 Meg graphics
files and I more than doubled the speed of some tasks by adding an
additional Gig of RAM. I went from 512 Meg to 1.5 Gig. I use a Sempron
2800.

BTW: I have never ran Gentoo. Thought about it but I'm lazy and Debian Sid
has just worked great. I was told the best way to learn Linux was to pick
a distro and stick with it through all of the problems. Learn how to fix
the problems that may pop up and you'll know Linux.

YMMV,
Steve

On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 04:07:03 -0800, Hugh Janus wrote:

<<snip>>
> So it is not noticeably faster? I always thought it was. Maybe
when
> people say that it is faster they are refering to it not being so
> bloated perhaps? (Am I right in saying that it is just 1 CD?)

Hi,

Alright I'm sorry but I just have to.

Debian has a businesscard cd that's only 40 Meg or you can install from
2-floppies. Yet you could load one of the largest repositories of programs
for any distro of Linux. Bloatware central if that's what you choose. The
fact that it is available on one cd has very little to do with how
bloated, or how light, the distro is.

You could buy the 14 cd set of Debian 3.1 from cheapbytes and only install
the base system, which would NOT be bloated at all. It is what's installed
that makes bloat. Even though I've never used it I would bet you could
install enough crap on Gentoo to make it bloated. Any Linux
can be made bloated. I am not sure if any distro can be made lean though,
at least by a normal user.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

BTW: I use Debian and they have great documentation. When I'm googling for
answers, Gentoo docs are high on my list to read. I've found them to be
very easy to understand with great info.

Steve

"Hugh Janus" <my-junk-account@hotmail.com> writes:
>1.) Is it really faster or is that just a myth? My machine is an
>AMD64 3400 with 1GB of ram.

Hmm, I actually have some data on this, from our Latex benchmark

0.76s Fedora Core 1 Athlon 64 3200+, Clawhammer 2GHz 1MB L2 64-bit memory
0.788s Gentoo Athlon 64 3200+, Clawhammer 2GHz 1MB L2 64-bit memory
0.860s Debian etch Dual Opteron 270, 2GHz 1MB L2 dual core 128-bit memory

The hardware should be about equivalent for this benchmark. Here's
another result, with faster hardware:

0.781s Debian etch Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 2.2GHz 1MB L2 dual core 128-bit mem

Ok, let's clock this box down to 2GHz:

0.865s Debian etch Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 2GHz 1MB L2 dual core 128-bit mem

Very similar to the Opteron result, as expected.

Given that there is not much going on with CPU-specific compiler
options on AMD64 (there are not that many different CPUs around), I
guess it's the compiler versions that make the difference. On Gentoo
latex was probably compiled with gcc 3.3, FC1 probably also something
like this or maybe 3.2. Don't know for Debian.

If you are interested in the Latex benchmark:

how to run: <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/latex-bench/>
Results: <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/franz/latex-bench>

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

Am Wed, 8 Feb 2006 09:14:56 -0500 schrieb Arthur Hagen:

Hi, I another Gentoo newbee trying to switch from SuSE. Fortunately I have
an extra unused PC to try stuff out. I hope someone still reads this old
thread and doesn't complain too much about the probably very FAQ-like
question of mine.

>
> If you want a particular piece of software installed, say "stellarium",
> you would do:
>
> emerge stellarium
>
> This will figure out which other packages it depends on, install those
> if not already present, and then install your package. By "install"
> here, it typically means configuring, compiling and installing, without
> you having to do all the steps that compiling yourself from source would
> take, except waiting. And waiting some more.
>
> If you didn't like the package, "emerge --unmerge stellarium" will
> remove it for you.
>

Am I dependent on stellarium existing in the "official" package system?
What if I want to try something that doesn't? In SuSE, for some programs it
typically happened that I wanted to have versions of a program in my system
were SuSE was some steps back. In this case, I just installed the tarball
(or maybe binary, like in Firefox nightlies) in a directory tree outside
the ordinary hierarchy (I chose /opt/local). Will it be like this in Gentoo
as well or is there a possibility to integrate "any old tarball" into the
system so I can take advantage of Gentoo versioning support and avoid
conflicts with things "inside" the official Gentoo area?

Joachim

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Joachim Pense wrote:
> Am Wed, 8 Feb 2006 09:14:56 -0500 schrieb Arthur Hagen:
>
> Hi, I another Gentoo newbee trying to switch from SuSE. Fortunately I have
> an extra unused PC to try stuff out. I hope someone still reads this old
> thread and doesn't complain too much about the probably very FAQ-like
> question of mine.
[snip]
> Am I dependent on stellarium existing in the "official" package system?
> What if I want to try something that doesn't? In SuSE, for some programs it
> typically happened that I wanted to have versions of a program in my system
> were SuSE was some steps back. In this case, I just installed the tarball
> (or maybe binary, like in Firefox nightlies) in a directory tree outside
> the ordinary hierarchy (I chose /opt/local). Will it be like this in Gentoo
> as well or is there a possibility to integrate "any old tarball" into the
> system so I can take advantage of Gentoo versioning support and avoid
> conflicts with things "inside" the official Gentoo area?
>
> Joachim

Hi,
With Gentoo, there are a couple of things you can do about this:

1. Exactly the same as with any other distribution (install to
/usr/local or somewhere and maintain it yourself).

2. Write your own ebuild and (submit it to the repository or not as
you wish). You can either submit the ebuild to Gentoo to be included
in the official Portage tree, so anyone can use it, or you can put
into an "overlay directory", so that it appears as part of your own
Portage tree and it won't be touched when you do an "emerge sync" to
bring your main tree up to date. In either case, the sandboxing
mechanism keeps track of installed files, you can use etc-update to
update configuration files, you can uninstall the program easily, and
so on.

I've never written by own ebuild, but I believe it's not very hard
(it's pretty similar to a script which just runs configure/make/make
install against the official source tarball).

Chris
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On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:41:03 +0000, Chris Head wrote:

> I've never written by own ebuild, but I believe it's not very hard

It's really quite simple if you start from a copy of
${PORTDIR}/skel.ebuild .

Writing a simple no-frills ebuild is no more difficult than compiling a
package by hand (yet miles easier to maintain).

--
Ben M.

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