Sunday, December 16, 2012

The difference between Ubuntu and Gentoo ;)

This gem comes from the xda developers forums; thanks barry99705!

"Using/installing Ubuntu is like buying a car. It may have a few features you'll never need or use, and might need to have a couple features added as aftermarket parts.

Using/installing Gentoo is like buying a pile of sheet metal, a few rubber trees, small pile of copper, a pile of sand, and an oil well. Then you have to cut and fabricate the car's body from the sheet metal, extract the rubber from the trees, then use that to make the tires and all the seals on the car. Use the pile of copper to make all the wires, and use the leftover rubber(you did save the scraps didn't you) to make the insulation. Melt down the pile of glass to make the windshield, side and back windows, also the headlights and lights themselves. Then you need to extract the crude oil from the well to refine your own engine oil and gas. In the end, you have a car created to your exact specifications (if you know what the hell you're doing) that may or may not be any better than just buying a car off the lot."

Of course I should additionally mention that Gentoo provides awesome documentation for all the steps and most of the actual assembly work is done single-handedly by portage!

5 comments:

  1. I very much enjoyed this!

    I think the other one to add to the comparison would be Arch: Installing Arch is like buying the chassis, engine, windows, headlights, etc separately and then combining them to make a car that is made roughly to your specs but not completely.

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  2. The thing that Ubuntu does right is that their users will eventually read the manual, even if it's just to have some fun during a traffic jam. We should learn from that.

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  3. I kind of disagree with the statement. Gentoo is more like coming up with the specs or blueprints of the car and then emerging it :)

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  4. Your description of Gentoo would suit LFS much better :). I'd describe Gentoo as a company which hands out robots(called portage), and after you tell your robot your exact needs the car has to fulfill, he goes on gathering metal, melting it and making all the needed parts, then putting them together for you. You just need to give it concise explanation on what you're need, so it can make the car more optimized for the work you need done with it, i.e. whether you want to race, transport material, pick up girls with it, or just drive you to work. It could also build you a motorcycle or a train if like, or it could turn your car into one later on as your needs vary :).

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  5. /Gentoo: be a robot overlord/

    I like it. Ni!

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