On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Mark Hanchey wro= te: > This is the best reason of all to try out gentoo. =A0This is a pic mailin= g > list but if you ever venture into the world of ARM or MIPS systems that > can run a full linux kernel , learning how linux really works from the > basics , without installers or pre-packaged binaries helps a ton. > Gentoo gives you the chance to learn the core code to have a functioning > linux system so when the time comes to run on minimal hardware you can > better understand the process. I started with linux when there was no X > , no gui, just text, the process of using it was difficult, to say the > least ,but I better understood how it all worked. Today ,with the way > linux is distributed ,users become overwhelmed when something breaks > because they can't click their way out of the problem or there isn't > something they can download to fix it. I already know how a Linux system works... If I get Gentoo, it won't be for any learning purpose. I made my own "distro" entirely from scratch with a vanilla kernel (2.2 or 2.4) many years ago for a 386 single board computer. Let me rephrase my question: For those of you who have tried Gentoo, did you find that compiling everything from source provided a noticeable speed increase over a regular binary distribution? I'm guessing like compiling for the new SSE instructions and other instructions set extensions not found on 686(?) computers (but what Arch linux is compatible with) would provide some speed increase. Is it worth the trouble is the question. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .