[NTLUG:Discuss] Anyone here use Gentoo?

[Kyle Davenport]

From: Brain Kontrath <bkontr at comcast.net>
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Gentoo is incredible, I use it on all my machines.  The processor based
optimizations  used to compile the source code probably
make it the fastest Linux distribution possible. Gentoo is the first
distribution where you build the system entirely from source code.  The
only down side is that installing X and a window manager (like KDE) can
easily take a day or more ---and this on a cable connection. I should
also mention that Gentoo is not for 1st time Linux users. Gentoo is
really geared toward hard-core do-it-yourself penguins with command line
experience.  But if you really feel the need for speed and you want
things done your way, Gentoo is the only way to go.
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After I've tweaked my own kernel (with Kon Colivas' desktop performance
patches), tweaked my drivers and settings and services, and compiled my own
athlon-optimized source rpm's, I don't know that Gentoo would be giving you
any better performance than redhat.  They can't magically make the
source-code optimized for every platform.  And I still have n't gotten
around to non-gcc standard compilers, much less athlon-optimized
assemblers!

I add this line to ~/.rpmrc
optflags: athlon -O3 -march=athlon-xp -funroll-all-loops
-fomit-frame-pointer -Wall -ffast-math

and build any worrisome rpm's with
rpmbuild --rebuild stuff.src.rpm --target=athlon