Many times I can read about how people look at Gentoo and its nature of always compiling each packet at installation. Often it’s believed that Gentoo is faster because the compilation can optimize for the processor being used. That may be true, but that is not what characterizes Gentoo.
In my opinion it’s the use-flags.
The Gentoo use-flags
Gentoo use-flags are global tags with an on/off property. The probably most common flag is the “doc” flag that if set indicates that documentation should be installed with every package. Most flags usually control wheter or not to include some feature in a package, such as ipv6.
My opinion
I loved the “large” useflags being able to control the programs to only include the features I was using such as support for one audio system or database backend. For example to choose gtk or kde and have that choice compiled into every package that supported both. Or choosing pulseaudio and then have every program that can support it compile the feature. The same way features can be removed such as arts support that then never will show up in the application.
Of course you would have to know what you needed. And the meaning of many use-flags could sometimes be difficult to understand.
Most annoying would be php that had a lot off features off by default. Every time I would need a new feature I had to recompile php since I hadn’t included that specific use-flag.
There is also a lot similarities where what can be found in gentoo use-flags can in debian be found as multiple packages.
Although it was a lot of work, or mostly time waiting, to work with gentoo use-flags I loved it since it was possible. Now I’m new to arch and have so far not found an easy way to include pulseaudio support in vlc which in gentoo was done by adding the pulseaudio flag to vlc(or globally)
