[ale] Gentoo vs. RedHat

[Calvin Harrigan]

On Sunday 29 February 2004 10:01 am, Mike Millson wrote:
> I'm considering giving Gentoo a try for a box that will act as a router
> and run dhcp, squid, and portsentry. But I'm wondering, how fast are bug
> fixes available compared to when RedHat fixes are available via up2date.
> Also, it sounds like whenever Gentoo installs an update, it has to
> compile in the background. Is the Gentoo update process so resource
> intensive that it could bog down a production box until the update is
> finished? Or is it no worse than downloading files using up2date?
> Anything I should be wary of using Gentoo on a production system router?
>
> Mike
>
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Updates, patches, etc. on Gentoo are usually quick, never had to wait more 
than a few hours for a critical fix or a couple days for a major release.
Gentoo can be quite resource intensive when updating large packages.  A kde 
compile on a XP 2200 take about 8 hours for instance.  Most smaller utility 
packages takes less than 10 minutes.  If all you are doing is routing with 
the box, I doubt you'll even notice when you do an upgrade.  If you decide to 
go the gentoo route, make sure you read and understand the portage manual.  A 
lot of the problems people run into with gentoo could be avoided with just a 
single read of the portage manual.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-manual.xml

Calvin