| Latest Gentoo eases configurability |
May 02, 2025
Two parallel but different takes on the latest Linux distribution, Gentoo 2006.0, make for interesting reading. eWEEK.com's Jason Brooks, whose review of the new Gentoo edition was published May 1, points out that this respected Linux edition is about as configurable as they come.
"Gentoo is a Linux distribution that succeeds in striking a balance between fine-grained configurability and ongoing manageability ... In contrast to popular Linux distributions such as Red Hat's Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Debian GNU/Linux that are delivered as collections of precompiled binaries, Gentoo Linux users build the software that makes up their Gentoo systems from source," Brooks writes, approaching the distro from a developer's standpoint.
While agreeing that Gentoo may be soft as putty for developers to use, Linux-Watch.com columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols takes a slightly different vantage point on the popular distro: that of the enterprise user.
"First things first. Gentoo is not for everyone," Vaughan-Nichols. "While Gentoo makes working with source code for everything from the kernel to the most minor utility program as easy as possible, this is no distribution for someone whose idea of installing a Linux application starts and ends with SUSE's YAST or Linspire's CNR (click and run).
"It's not, however, a Linux system that you want to drop into a production environment. Gentoo takes the concept of 'roll your own' distributions to its logical conclusion. With Gentoo, everything, and I mean everything, can be set up just the way you want it to be set. After all, as Brooks points out, this is a distribution that comes with 21 different Linux kernels.
"That's great, but Gentoo's not the distribution you want to use if you need to support a hundred different desktops and servers," Vaughan-Nichols writes.
"Roll your own"? Twenty-one different kernel choices? Perhaps you might want to read each article yourself and get the full story from each of these celebrated writers. Brooks's review can be found here, and Vaughan-Nichols's opinion is here.
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