Comments by "Winnetou17" (@Winnetou17) on "A Base Gentoo Installation" video.

Does that mean that all compilations were single threaded ? And if that is true, does that mean that all compilations would've been 4-6 times as fast as they were ? 20 minutes grub install ?
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Thank you!
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@jJaha Sjsj The performance gain is hard to say because it depends a lot on what you use and the hardware you have. Generally, since you have the use flags, you can customize the apps you install by quite a bit (like removing anything you don't need/use) and also compile them specifically for you processor microarchitecture and with higher levels of optimisations (like O3). In the end you should have lower RAM usage and some things should be a bit faster, but usually nothing ground breaking. It gets better and better the older your hardware is, since the differences between a generic app and an optimized app are much more visible. There's a video on Youtube which is 1 or 2 years old with a guy that installed the latest Gentoo at that time on a 486. It compiled it on another machine, then copied over and booted into it. It was slow (took like 6 minutes IIRC just to boot), but unlike basically any other OS nowadays, it was actually working, with all the modern features. If you're not big into customizing and/or optimizing or if you don't want to learn how the OS works, then you most likely won't find the time investment worthy.
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@sigmundfreud4472 Yeah, see the pinned comment (which was after you posted your comments). DT edited the wrong make.conf in the beginning, so he used the default settings, which, I think, means that he compiled everything single threaded.
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@serge5046 Someone here mentioned (and DT pinned the comment) that DT edited the wrong make.conf in the beginning, so he basically used the default settings. Which means he didn't used -march=znver1, but he also didn't use -j6. Which means all compilations were single threaded ?
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It's one of the most customizable and most optimizable (if I can say that) OS. With those use flags you can compile the programs you use to a) use your specific processor's architecture (and also things like O3) and b) only have what you want & use. For point b) there are big portions of some programs that you can effectively cut and simply not have them. In some cases it also makes for some apps to use less RAM, but that's usually a very minor concern. Also, since it's source based, it's very free-software friendly. Lastly, you don't really NEED to be on the cutting edge with all apps. Some of them you can do with not updating/recompiling for months, if you don't need the updates. Lastly lastly, to answer your question ... it is suitable for desktop use. If what you mean if it's also usable as a main-computer-daily-driver, yes, that too, but it will take you some time until you can do it effectively. Not recommended until you're familiar and confortable with Gentoo, so you know exactly what to install, when and what to update and how to solve problems and conflicts when they arise.
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@serge5046 Interesting! Thanks!
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In Gentoo's case, I think it's a good indication of things to come. It gets you to the right mindset needed to have using this OS. And I guess it helps a little, since some things you'll know already where to change them from (like the locale, timezone etc).
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@terrydaktyllus1320 I don't want to seem offensive, but I can't contain myself and have to tell you that, maan, your comment is basically useless.
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Somebody here (see the pinned comment) saw that DT edited the wrong make.conf in the beginning, so he wasn't actually compiling using 6 threads. I think that without specifing anything, it's done single threaded, which explains why his times were so big that even he was surprised. But, compiling firefox or chromium (one of the biggest compiles for normal users, bigger than the kernel for some reason) does take hours, unless you have a really good system (16-64 threads). But then again, overnight compiling is a thing too.
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