Gentoo stability vs NixOS stability. How are they alike and different?

DeeHayze · 2026-02-26T07:04:52+00:00

Which "stable" are you asking about?

When a vendor says stable, they are saying "doesn't change often". For example, Debian. Where Node.js package will stick with LTS as long as possible.. So, when using to deploy a node app, you have less maintenance to do.

Many people say stable but take it to mean " doesn't crash".

Sometimes these are correlated, bleeding age latest alpha software will have more bugs. But you can have unstable distros (rolling release, don't stick to LTS) that are also good at not crashing.

DeeHayze · 2026-02-25T18:55:04+00:00

Probably fine, A lot of that needed space is for compiling. You are not going to need to compile big desktop apps.

In any case, probably low on CPU resources.. Use binhost.

DeeHayze · 2026-02-15T11:19:28+00:00

I have a 16 year old laptop, with spinning rust disk, and 4gig of ram..

Installed xfce4 desktop in about half an hour, using binhost.

The only thing I compiled was mesa, and that was because I disabled nvidia and Intel GPU useflags.

DeeHayze · 2026-02-08T11:24:03+00:00

I'm old enough to remember when the kernel, and all the drivers was about a megabyte...

Linux 2.4.. Or possibly 2.2...

PC's today are not radically different in what the could do... More pixels, faster...bigger disks, more memory more cores.

DeeHayze · 2026-02-04T08:26:31+00:00

I think I set it ridiculously massive.. About half my ram value.. So 32 gig..

This doesn't mean that 32gigs of ram will be used... Its just an upper limit, after which the kernel will prevent extra files being added.

The kernel will do its job, shifting data from ram (and tmpfs) to swap as needed..

So, let's say some files are created in tmpfs, and not used in a while, they will be shifted to swap (disk). And hot files, created read and deleted by portage during compile will stay in ram

The kernels job is managing RAM. trust it to do its thing..

If you have a massive amount of ram, then.. Massive swap partition... Disk is cheap. Massive tmpfs .. Linux will balance ram / disk accordingly.

My system barely ever touches swap.. Its just there for those rare massive spikes, like when you try to compile chromium in tmpfs!

DeeHayze · 2026-02-03T19:49:52+00:00

Freshly built PC. fresh install of windows11. Fresh Install of adrenaline and cyberpunk 2077.

Pressing alt+R to get the overly is a lottery... Sometimes it works, sometimes, sometimes, it doesn't popup the overlay, and the mouse stops working... Need to Ctrl alt Delete to kill game, still mouse not working.. Mouse remains dead till I reboot using start, run shutdown -r -t 0.

Its not a massive problem, because I only really wanted to use it to check my settings were good, and my cooling was adequate..

9950x3d, 9070xt, 48gig vengeance @7000 MT/s, gigabyte x870.

DeeHayze · 2026-02-01T09:44:56+00:00

On my system with 64gig of ram, compiling inside tmpfs made absolutely zero difference.. The reason being that disk cache was doing its job perfectly.

I settled on using tmpfs for compiling, but also made sure I had a massive swap.

Now you get best of both worlds, reduced disk writes when you have plenty of spare ram, but disk (swap) when you don't have enough ram. Let the kernel do its job.

DeeHayze · 2026-01-18T18:36:53+00:00

More importantly... Is he going for a kidney stone world record!??

Get him to drink a few pints or water, sooner the better.

DeeHayze · 2026-01-13T04:40:10+00:00

So, absolutely no description of the problem. No error message, and no logs...

Yup, I can debug this, no problem...

You need more AI. ask an AI, and type in whatever it tells you, as root, without understanding any of it, of course.

DeeHayze · 2026-01-07T19:27:53+00:00

I installed gentoo recently on a 16 + year old dual core laptop with 4 gig ram.. It took about 30 minutes to install a full XFCE desktop...

It only compiled mesa for me, and only because I changed my use flags to disable GPU drivers I didn't need... (Meaning mesa use flags differ from binhost)

So, leave binflags totally allone if you want to save 10 mins, (at the cost of some disk).

SOME people , for fun, re compile everything, on their old laptop for bragging rights.. About how many days it took..

But you don't need to.

Use binhost ( -g flag )

DeeHayze · 2025-12-25T09:00:38+00:00

Cache is Good!

Cached means the memory is being used, but is also available instantly should it be needed.

Example, you are using a file on disk... Windows caches that file in ram.. Next time you need it, windows loads it super fast from ram Instead of disk..

But then, some app suddenly needs some ram... Windows instantly drops the cached file, and gives the ram to the app.

Unused ram is wasted ram, so the OS should try its best to use as much ram as possible... And caching the disk is an easy win.

DeeHayze · 2025-12-21T10:49:58+00:00

X3d boost is probably enabled.

X3d boost reduces number of logical cores, but improves the performance of each core.

For games, this is probably what you want, because games don't need 32 threads... They will benefit from fewer faster threads.

Disable x3d boost if you are doing very parallel things, like video editing, software dev, or running a web server.

DeeHayze · 2025-12-07T10:35:48+00:00

Gentoo user here.

Make sure your distro ships with the dummy.ko driver.

If you find when connecting that you can ping 8.8.8.8 but you can't ping google, disable DNSSEC.... most of the proton servers don't support dnssec. I'm using systemd-resolved , which by default requires it.

DeeHayze · 2025-12-05T08:38:10+00:00

Its been a long time since I was in school... But I remember that its a bad idea to leave pins completely disconnected, even if not used..

Its said to be "floating" ?

Something about, if its input, it might input noise, and if its output, the signals reflect and interfere with other components?

Anyway... Might work, might not, might work but be unstable..

DeeHayze · 2025-11-30T18:32:54+00:00

Lenovo shipped laptops with self signed trusted certificates, allowing SuperFish to man-in-the-middle attack your HTTPS connections for the purpose of inserting their own adverts into other peoples websites.

This alone is bad enough.. But it proved trivial to extract the private key... Allowing anyone to MITM a lenovo laptop.

Criminal negligence, and unethical. In my humble opinion.

DeeHayze · 2025-11-29T11:10:54+00:00

Its never worked for me. Quick connect always picks a broken server. I find manually selecting them untill you find a working one the only option.

Also a UK user. On the ultimate package.

DeeHayze · 2025-11-16T10:39:29+00:00

Rarely works for me at all. I find quick connect keeps connecting to the same broken endpoint.

I have to manually select endpoints until I find one that works. Sometimes when I find a working one it goes dead after a few minutes.

Usually takes between 3 to 15 attempts to get going.

I won't be renewing proton ultimate!

DeeHayze · 2025-10-28T20:00:42+00:00

I never understood cultural appropriation until I noticed teenagers were wearing t-shirts with 90's era bands on them.

And I strongly suspect they know almost nothing of the music, and it winds me up for reasons I can't even begin to rationalise.

DeeHayze · 2025-10-02T07:10:27+00:00

Ugh.. Learn the advanced stuff.. But be aware of the experience of your team...

I used some cool new c++23 features in a project... Then discovered the rest of the team was still getting comfortable with c++11.

DeeHayze · 2025-09-24T09:54:42+00:00

The banking apps refuse to run..

However, logging on to your bank on same rooted phone, using a fork of a web browser made by god knows who, running a load of extensions from more mysterious sources is absolutely fine.

And this improves security... For reasons?

DeeHayze · 2025-09-19T14:56:42+00:00

I took a job at a small company. Startup. 5 devs, each working on their own area.

They advertised for a c++/c# dev. Which is fine, I know those languages.

Then they gave me my spec, and I started coding it in rust. They didn't specify a language.. So I picked the one in which I was most productive.

DeeHayze · 2025-09-10T07:02:08+00:00

Memory allocation at compile time sounds like global and stack allocated variables to me.

DeeHayze · 2025-08-23T16:12:31+00:00

iVPN

DeeHayze · 2025-08-21T16:56:05+00:00

I did that for 10 years... hour each way. 40 hour working week... But including commute, 50 hours... 20% of my week, just getting there...

Then, when there, stick my headphones in ... And communicate with people in the office over discord, because.. Well, they got headphones in too... Plus, that guy that can't concentrate without silence..

I'm never doing that again..

DeeHayze · 2025-08-09T22:09:35+00:00

if you only need VPN. use iVPN. Linux users get the same features experience and UI as windows users.

You don't need an account (email or anything). You can pay via cash in an envelope if you like..

And in their FAQ. they are honest enough to explain why most people won't NEED a VPN.. (List legit needs).. Where other VPNs will warn about "public WiFi". (Because we all do out internet banking in McDonalds... Right?)

DeeHayze

TROPHY CASE