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Comment by fooqux | Hacker News Reader

So you don't consider Gentoo or Slack distributions?

You don't really "compile stuff yourself" on Gentoo. There's still a package manager, and it does all the building and installing for you. Yes, compilation happens as a result of the user invoking the package manager, but there's a huge usability difference between "emerge foo", and download foo.tar.gz -> unpack -> configure/build/install -> track updates and repeat as needed. I would call the latter "compiling foo yourself", but not the former.

It is similar on GoboLinux as well. There is a Recipe repository that contains build scripts that you invoke with Compile, which automatically compiles and installs the package.

What kelnos said...

I respect Gentoo fine (have not tried Slack TBH); and a distribution can very well be compilation-based - but that doesn't mean that I have to sort things out manually. That's what packagers and distribution maintainers are for. Gobo seems to tell you that I need to do that work myself.

One of the "first-class-links" on the top of the homepage explains their build-from-source manager:

https://gobolinux.org/recipes.html

Might have been a good idea to just click on that, first?

FWIW, they used to have a very nice rootless install of their compile framework, allowing you to use gobolinux within your home dir, within another distro.

> Might have been a good idea to just click on that, first?

Not really. That is, they declare that I would need to be able to to build management/configuration manually. So, either the FAQ is incorrect, or the build-from-source manager doesn't really cover everything. If it's the former, then that's good to know, but I wouldn't assume that is the case.

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Its a build-from-source system. Akin to ports, or emerge. Where they do the fetching of sources, compiling and installing of global symlinks for you.

No, it doesn't write your config files for you.

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