How many scientific people use Linux?

[NruJaC]

No, situations have changed now...things are very stable and fast I have to say (though maintainers are missing for a few packages like Recoll, kat and chrome)...I've been on Gentoo since 3 weeks and no problems yet. Problems come when you start tweaking for best possible speed...for e.g I just tweaked my Kernel configuration and now I cannot mount FAT file systems...can only do it as root...god knows what's even the Gentoo forum people can't help.

I do not find the compilation times a problem...I do something else while it compiles...so it doesn't matter.

The catch with Gentoo is that to make it work well, you need to configure it well...USE flags are the critical part...so I have ~170 use flags set, so I get a faster system...aaa...the CFLAGS hardly matter unless you're on a unique processor.

I was wondering Gentoo should start hosting it's binary package...portage can install binaries.


Anyway, I will try arch and if I find it faster, I will switch; but for a year I am most probably with Gentoo.

BTW I have just ~8 months experience with Linux...that too in Ubuntu.

Gentoo is as stable as you make it to be. Used to be that messing with CFLAGS was a really popular option (setting things like -03 and -funrollallloops, etc.), that may have changed. And I also was using it before the binary installer (so it took something like a week to install and get set up, by the time you were done getting everything working anyway). I just no longer have the patience for compiling my apps; when I install something, I usually want it pretty quickly so I can work on something, or mess around or w/e. Waiting an hour doesn't really appeal to me.

 

[dE_logics]

(setting things like -03 and -funrollallloops, etc.)

Did you apply these flags?...or do you think they work?