20200508-why-i-dislike-arch-and-gentoo.html (6110B)
1 <!DOCTYPE HTML> 2 <html lan=en> 3 <head> 4 <title>Why I dislike Arch and Gentoo | Cem's Website</title> 5 <meta charset="utf-8"> 6 <meta name="Description" content="Cem Keylan's Website"> 7 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no"> 8 <style> 9 html {font-family:monospace;font-size:16px;color:#282a36;} 10 body { 11 width: 90%; 12 max-width: 1050px; 13 margin-left: auto; 14 margin-right: auto; 15 margin-top: 20px; 16 overflow: none; 17 overflow-y: scroll; 18 padding-right: 10px; 19 padding-left: 10px; 20 } 21 a{text-decoration:none;font-weight:bold;color:#282a36;} 22 a:hover{text-decoration:underline;} 23 @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { 24 html {color: white;background:#282a36;} 25 a{color:white;} 26 } 27 </style> 28 <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/syntax.css"> 29 <script src="/static/highlight.pack.js"></script> 30 <script>hljs.initHighlightingOnLoad();</script> 31 </head> 32 <body> 33 <div class="header"> 34 <nav> 35 <a href='/'>index</a> | 36 <a href="/software.html">software</a> | 37 <a href="/blog.html">blog</a> | 38 <a href="/contact.html">contact</a> | 39 <a href="/sysmgr">sysmgr</a> | 40 </nav> 41 </div> 42 <hr> 43 <p> 44 <h1>Why I dislike Arch and Gentoo</h1> 45 46 <p>Over the years, I have used many many Linux distributions. The reason I am 47 now using a distribution maintained by me, is because I am never truly satisfied 48 about other people’s work. Not that they are bad at they do, it’s just that 49 they don’t share the same vision as me. And I have felt this way with almost 50 every distribution I have used.</p> 51 52 <h2>Arch Linux</h2> 53 54 <p>Arch Linux itself feels like it became a ‘meme distribution’. Their user-base 55 is a cult-like community that think they are superior for using Arch Linux. 56 Now, you might be an Arch user, and might not be like this. I used Arch for 57 a long time, and didn’t feel this way, ever. I only see this level of cultism 58 for Arch and systemd.</p> 59 60 <p>If you ever call Arch bloated on an online community website, you will get 61 lots of crap for it. But in fact, Arch Linux is bloated. Now this isn’t due 62 to having too many packages in the base installation. This is because of their 63 packaging of software.</p> 64 65 <p>Arch enables almost every single option in the package configuration, meaning 66 lots of unnecessary dependencies, and packages with humongous sizes.</p> 67 68 <p>Pacman is a rather slow package manager, and missing alternatives. For me, 69 an alternatives system is a must.</p> 70 71 <p>If you want to use a better binary distribution, use Void Linux. They have 72 saner package configurations, and the environment just feels more UNIXy. xbps 73 is really fast, and has an alternatives system.</p> 74 75 <h2>Gentoo Linux</h2> 76 77 <p>This will be the longer part, because my dislike for Gentoo is bigger than 78 my dislike towards Arch. If you want to see how NOT to maintain a distribution, 79 check out Gentoo.</p> 80 81 <p>I’ve used Gentoo for a few months, and I’m saying this right out of the 82 gate. Portage is the slowest piece of software that I have ever used on 83 Linux. Maybe that’s because I deliberately avoid software using Python, 84 but Portage is most probably the slowest package manager that is being 85 used.</p> 86 87 <p>Portage depends on Bash, Python, and GNU wget. I have got a line count from 88 <code>cloc</code>, doing a <code>find . \( -name '*.sh -o -name '*.py' \) -exec cloc {} +</code>. 89 The source code of just <code>*.sh</code> and <code>*.py</code> files are over 100k lines of code. 90 Then I got curious and runned cloc against the whole repository. Here is 91 the output.</p> 92 93 <pre><code>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 94 Language files blank comment code 95 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 96 Python 703 20009 21411 102180 97 Bourne Shell 13 643 678 3911 98 Bourne Again Shell 44 583 434 3172 99 diff 17 31 298 574 100 YAML 6 32 80 573 101 XSD 1 27 27 494 102 C 2 56 128 291 103 make 1 7 6 19 104 INI 1 1 0 15 105 reStructuredText 1 5 4 9 106 XSLT 1 0 0 5 107 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 108 SUM: 790 21394 23066 111243 109 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 110 </code></pre> 111 112 <p>That’s quite a lot.</p> 113 114 <p>Portage is a package manager that tries to ease the configuration process of 115 packages, but at the process makes it terribly complex to compose packages, 116 and adds billions of portage configuration options. Configuring your first 117 kernel is literally easier than configuring portage in a way you want. Users 118 just do not know that they would be better off doing an LFS build for a much 119 stabler system. My system was broken countless times while using Gentoo. 120 Maintaining a Gentoo system is honestly harder than maintaining my own 121 distribution.</p> 122 123 <p><strong>EAPI</strong>, probably the worst thing about the Portage ecosystem. It is the most 124 complex, hard to read, hard to learn packaging system ever made. Creating a 125 USE flag system shouldn’t have been this hard.</p> 126 </p> 127 <a href="/blog/20200508-why-i-dislike-arch-and-gentoo.txt">This page in plain-text</a> 128 <hr> 129 <p class=footer>Copyright © 2019-2021 Cem Keylan</p> 130 </body> 131 </html>