greentoyellow2
Date: 10/22/2006
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Sunday, 03 August 2003 |
Gentoo
This comparison test of Debian, Mandrake, and Gentoo was posted on slashdot today. I only recently became familiar with Gentoo linux. The stated objective of the distro revolves around giving the user greater control over what their installation contains, how it is configured, and how it is compiled. It all comes down to easy optimization for the given task.
The testers compared more or less identical installs to see how fast they performed about half a dozen tests. They expected (hoped?) Gentoo would outperform the others as a result of Gentoo's machine specific compilation. Most other distros give you the binaries pre-compiled for generic hardware and ready to go. This makes installation and deployment simpler, but means the binaries are compiled to the lowest common denominator. For example, most of the packages on this server (RedHat 8) are compiled to work with the basic instruction set used in the Intel 386 or original Pentium processor (even though it is running on a Pentium III).
Gentoo employs a unique auto-build system. When you want to install a package, the source code is downloaded, the makefile optimized for your configuration and hardware, then compiled and installed. This sounds like are really good idea.
The results of the not even close to scientific and exhaustive comparison found that Gentoo performed worse than Debian and Mandrake in most of the tests. While by no means conclusive, this illustrates and important rule of software development which I think applies to system administration as well - optimize last. The corollary to this rule is the first step of optimization is profiling. You can't optimize until you know where the bottlenecks are.
I still like the concept of Gentoo and believe their optimizable distro is a worthy objective. However, gains from compiler level optimizations will only help in very few circumstances. The real gains come from Occam's Razor, simpler is better. Gentoo makes it easier to install no more software than you need (even the "minimal" install of RedHat on this server contains 301 packages). Less software means fewer unexpected interactions, unused services exploited for security vulnerabilities, and so on. Another aspect of optimization (for the task, not for speed) Gentoo embraces is containing many packages and keeping those packages up to date. This is perhaps the greatest optimization of all - more features!
Blog Ho! Time to Trim the Sails
Speaking of optimization, it's time to take this blog beyond simple HTML. I decided to start my blog by typing into Dreamweaver and uploading the result. I figured why fiddle with blog software or code up my own without knowing if I would make use of it. I have and enjoy it. Right now, I'm considering MoveableType, PHPNuke, or just rolling my own.
My requirements are modest. The ability to post entries including a title, date/time stamp, and content is the most important. The ability to save working drafts would be nice. I've found myself starting an entry and working on it over a few sittings. A few readers (yes, all two of you) have emailed me a comment or two. I'd like the ability for users to post comments and read the comments of others. My photos page would also be updated more often with a touch of automation. That's really an overloading of the posting requirement with a photo added (auto resizing of the photo to a thumbnailish size and an 800X600 larger view would make this feature just about perfect). For display, I'd like to show the most recent 5 entries and the 3 most recent comments for each entry (and a link to the remaining comments) on the front page. Links to previous weeks and/or months. Some sort of hyperlinked calendar or other form of mapping all entries might be in order. A spell checker would be nice for my chronic spelling problem.
In summary, simple posting, simple user comments on posts, and a basic display of posts and comments are the highest priority features. These features must be implemented free from SQL Injection vulnerabilities, command execution vulnerabilities, DoS vulnerabilities, and cross site scripting problems. I'm currently leaning toward rolling my own, mostly for fun. Reader input here (especially if you blog) is appreciated, just
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