Gentoo: Excellent if you want a source distro

Gentoo: Excellent if you want a source distro

I read now and then, complaints about how much time it takes to update a gentoo install, but those complaints are somewhat misleading to those not familiar with gentoo.

Yes, updates CAN take considerable time to build. This is NOT, however, time taken away from the user, and his "real work".

Consider a worst-case scenario for build time: someone updates a base library for the KDE desktop apps, which in turn affects a large number of apps that you have installed on your box.

In this instance, you may have hundreds of packages change, and your machine may take all day to perform the builds. Does this mean you need to stop doing "real work" in the mean time? No. The total time I personally spend attending a build in this event is about 10 seconds. Just long enough to kick off the build process, and once in a while check back to see how things are progressing.

Even the availability of the apps you are updating is not typically affected by rebuild. As each app is successfully rebuilt, it is added to the system, after which, the older version is removed. All the while you can be using the old versions, until the new ones are installed.

I still wish for a better installer (just to set up new machines with less fuss than is necessary right now), but maintaining an existing gentoo box is not difficult or time consuming at all.