Re: Linux distro opinions

On Jan 5, 2004, at 2:23 PM, [email protected] wrote:

>> If you are after an optimized system, with good support for Jack, and 
>> a
>> really nice low latency kernel, I'd vote for Gentoo.  It's a bit of a
>> pain to set up, but it works really nicely once you have gotten the
>> hang of it.
>
> Thanks Josh, would this be your recommendation for both scenarios then?

Well... it depends on how fast your computer is and how experienced you 
are with linux.  Gentoo is kinda strange... you compile everything.  No 
binaries.  But the joy of this is you get to make sure that your system 
is optimized exactly how you want it.  You can take full advantage of 
your processor, and compile all your programs with the supported 
libraries you want.  There is a central "make.conf" file where you can 
say "USE=jack alsa -X ....." whatever and whenever an app has the 
option, it will try to compile it with jack and alsa support, without 
any X11 (for your barebones box).  After setting this stuff, installing 
things is easy...

emerge ardour snd ecasound  ----no csound though :(

and it will be built to spec.  Fun stuff.

The only problem is, it doesn't do a whole lot of hand holding.  You 
have to get down and dirty setting things up, but you learn a whole lot 
about linux in the process.  Gentoo has a really good forum 
(forums.gentoo.org) where you can get your questions answered, and 
there is also a good irc channel (#[email protected])

So... would I recomend it?  Depends.  Try it on the stripped down box 
and see what you think.

>> I used Planet CCRMA for a few days, but I quickly fell into redhat 
>> hell
>> and installed Gentoo over the whole thing.
>
> If you don't mind, what is red hat hell?

Well, redhat doesn't come with so many packages... many things that you 
want and need aren't included so you have to go to other sources to get 
them.  When you try to install, it will need some other package, and 
you have to search around for another one...  Eventually it drives you 
insane if you are used to using a distro like gentoo or debian that has 
all of these packages in the first place, and that can be installed 
with a single command (emerge XXX, or apt-get XXX)

If gentoo turns out to be too much work for you, I'd recommend the 
debian route.

Redhat is easy to get started with (the installer is first class) but 
when you want to do anything tricky things quickly fall apart (at least 
for me).

~josh

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