Comment by techcode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techcode | Hacker News Reader

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Download image from https://www.calculate-linux.org/ - put it on USB flashdrive.

And it's literally yes, yes, next, next - the defaults are pretty good.

1) Calculate Linux is 100% Gentoo with more profiles (e.g. server, desktop-kde, desktop-gnome ...etc) and after switching from vanilla Gentoo to Calculate - I didn't need to tweak any use flags of any packages.

Profiles are so good that everything works nicely together

2) There are prebuild binaries for your profile use-flag combo - can't recall last time I had to wait for something to compile

3) Much less likely to happen since you get binaries for everything - but there's additional cl-xxx tooling that makes even that easier

4) I don't think that's a bad thing. Though sure I could agree that having option to automatically restart services would be nice.

5) Yes - and you can also archive and basically have git-log on conf changes.

> Calculate Linux is 100% Gentoo with more profiles (e.g. server, desktop-kde, desktop-gnome ...etc) and after switching from vanilla Gentoo to Calculate - I didn't need to tweak any use flags of any packages.

If that's your thing, sure. I find even Gentoo too automated for my preferences. I'm using the most basic from the available profiles and tweak everything manually in package.use. I stopped using openrc and switched to just sysvinit/inittab.

But then, if you want binary packages and such, why use Gentoo or a fork?

This "I'm using the most basic from the available profiles and tweak everything manually in package.use" sounds like me 10-15 years ago.

Then one day at work I wanted to print something and I think I needed to add LDAP and CUPS use flags ... Rebuilding world with those new flags was not finished by the time I was back from lunch break, or maybe it even failed.

Then I discovered Calculate and it's desktop (e.g. KDE) profile turned out to have all those useful use flags already set in it's profiles.

Anyway ...

IMHO main reason to choose/stay with Gentoo/Calculate is flexibility and choice (like not having to use systemd, but also being able to). Habit is a part too - though due to work I've got familiar with CentOS and Ubuntu.

I don't necessarily want binary packages. Sure they are handy/convenient for speed/ease/etc. And even though I can't recall last time I needed to tweak some package/feature use flag (maybe V4L2 virtual camera in OBS?) - I really don't want to give that flexibility up ... As without it - it would be back to manually figuring out compile/run-time dependencies when all you want is just slightly differently configured/built package.

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