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Gentoo 2008.0 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the upgrades dept.

An anonymous reader notes that the Gentoo 2008.0 final release is available. From the announcement: "Code-named 'It's got what plants crave,' this release contains numerous new features including an updated installer, improved hardware support, a complete rework of profiles, and a move to Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD. LiveDVDs are not available for x86 or amd64, although they may become available in the future. The 2008.0 release also includes updated versions of many packages already available in your ebuild tree."

6 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Anyone tried other source based distros? by gambolt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do sourcemage and lunar compare, anyone know?

    I've had the impression that Gentoo has been stagnating recently.

  2. Global Warming - why?? by Gothmolly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A bit tongue-in-cheek, but I'm also serious here - what is the benefit of having thousands of geeks compiling the same code over and over, when you can download 1 binary distribution and be done? If you sum up the manhours of all this compilation, the power consumed by countless hard drives and processors churning away, whats the point? Just so you can have a 64bit Firefox that Flash won't run on? A 686-optimized kernel, connected to the Internet via 768 kbit DSL?

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    1. Re:Global Warming - why?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Xubuntu is slow because it has like 30 daemons loaded at startup. Provided you get rid of daemons you don't use, you'll find minimal speedups when something is optimized for a generic i686 compared to something optimized for core2, except maybe some video player/editor that isn't mplayer/mencoder based. Archlinux/Crux/Frugalware basically runs on this philosophy, and provides i686 generic binaries, which run on Pentium II and up.

    2. Re:Global Warming - why?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While people tend to say speed (which is generally true as far as older hardware and optimizations are concerned), I just like the simplicity and the ease of configuring ALL of my system in one folder: /etc/conf.d, pretty much.

      Another thing I like about gentoo is the simple fact: if it compiles, it runs. I've had debacles in the past where when you try to use some obscure program's binary it just won't run because you've got newer lib versions installed, etc, etc. Compiling stuff to work on your system means it'll run on your system, with the libs YOU have installed, and it'll work according to the specs you put in. i.e, if you want jpeg support for your image programs, but never use gif, then put the jpeg -gif use flags in make.conf, done. Your entire system will just ignore all gif dependencies. You try doing that with a binary distro and get back to me.

    3. Re:Global Warming - why?? by Hangeron · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not much benefit, but show me a distro with packages as up to date as Gentoo, and I'll switch over. I think most choose Gentoo because it's bleeding edge and for customization. Compilation and speed are just by-products as far as I'm concerned.

    4. Re:Global Warming - why?? by Gothmolly · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "...it might take a week to get everything installed..."

      Do you save that week in performance later?

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