Gentoo vs. Arch the final clash
李金贵 2010年10月27日 星期三 13:39 | 0条评论
Everyone get curious if it comes down to Gentoo as it is differs in many aspect from the other distributions. Now we will see how much we gain or loose using Gentoo. The article is based on a test made with phoronix-test-suite, experience with Gentoo, and facts. The opponent is Archlinux as it is an advanced distribution and offers nice performance beside other features. Don't make the wrong assumption it is not a battle between distributions. There should be no fights as it is your free choice what distribution you are using. I examine the features of the distributions and measure the performance gain/loss using Gentoo against Arch. So let the "battle" begin:
| Viewpoints | Gentoo | Arch |
|---|---|---|
| Package management | Portage: Fast and versatile package management system. | Pacman: It is fast and does the job |
| Package install time | Very slow (assuming you are installing from source as it is the "default") | Very fast |
| Customization regarding packages | Highly customizable using portage | Less customizable as pacman lacks features (e.g. injection). There are option like ABS but it is not near as usable as portage |
| Bleeding edge | Packages are often out of date. (e.g. conky is one year old (v. 1.6, current v. 1.7), gentoo uses 1.6 x-server, powernowd package contains 3 years old (0.97) version (current version is 1.0) | Bleeding edge except some packages (at the time of writing e.g. mplayer, mc are cannot be considered as BE) |
| System stability | Stable | Stable |
| Package problems | Yes (e.g. nitrogen isn't installable) - Not typical | Yes, there are problems ( e.g. thunderbird in the past) - Not typical |
| Community | Active and helpful | Active and helpful |
| Tiresome little problems | Yes, often e.g. The kbd package installed to the wrong place (it affects package versions). You should create symlinks as workaround | Yes, sometimes. It is usually due the new package versions |
As Gentoo using source to install application it is a fact that you can use custom flags for GCC which (in theory) will give better performance. Let's see is it true in practice:
As the graphs show there is no performance gain on Gentoo's side. The reasons:
- The same custom compiled kernel
- Same video driver version
- Custom compiled application (as PTS installs from source)
But then what's that "Arch gen" on the right side? It is the stock Archlinux kernel which performed well as we don't see any outstanding penalties rather it is faster in most cases. As you can see on the performance side there is no gain using Gentoo after your PC consumed many Watts of energy and you had to wait for the system upgrades and package compiles. Even if you are using the stock kernel there is nothing to be afraid of. Your PC performs just fine.
Conclusion:
I think portage is very good. If you want to tweak your system all day and night with the last bit of details then choose Gentoo. Tweaking systems became people hobby and Gentoo offers the tools for that. (It is sad that using stable repositories the broken packages are increasing. At least this is what I experienced during that sort time I used Gentoo.) But be aware it will take time. (A system install with the above configuration took 1.5 days (continuously) ). I don't see the point of fine grain control (e.g. USE flags) because the programs take insignificant space compared to todays hard drive capacity and as you can see there is no performance gain using Gentoo with O2 and march=native configuration.
评论
Zeuux © 2024
京ICP备05028076号
暂时没有评论