Re: Linux distros for servers that matter

On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 10:19:59PM +0100, Philipp Kern wrote:
> 
> On 3 Feb 2005, at 15:55, Andy Smith wrote:
> >[...] with the package management of freebsd or Gentoo. :)
> 
> Those systems are nice because you do not need to wait for a package to 
> build. Often you could just copy/modify the old build hint to get a new 
> version. However... about compile flags... you're right when you are 
> talking about feature set. That's why there are *-heavy packages in 
> Debian which provide all the functionality. But some programs really 
> lack things, that's right. But if you talk about optimisations... The 
> hype about Gentoo was not -- as you know -- really meaningful. The 
> speed gains are *very* low.

I'm not talking about optimisation as I truly believe that the time
spent actually administering the system and the advances in the
hardware over time will outweigh the minor advantages you can gain
by changing compiler flags and disabling parts of the software
(except in really strange circumstances).

What it's more about is avoiding useless dependencies.  For example,
there are many packages in Red Hat which depend on the entire of X
because they have an optional KDE or gnome component.  Even though
the upstream author may have been wise enough to provide a configure
switch to disable that, the RPM maintainer had to choose between
making an RPM with all options or else multiple RPMs with some
combination of flags disabled.

Debian maintainers may well have been able to do this better, but I
don't believe they will have been able to do it as well as BSD ports
or gentoo ebuilds do, since those systems can apply per-package
compile hints.

However it's a minor annoyance I'd be willing to live with..

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