I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
That is actually pretty cool. I know about portage, but I think it defeats the point of gentoo. Compiling from source is the point, right? That way the user gets all the speed benefits and optimization for their particular hardware.
Flatpaks are a great preview to see if the compiling is worth the time! Or a permanent solution for some software. I am happy that people don’t seem to have qualms about mixing software managers.
Also one of the use cases for flatpaks I forgot to mention was for proprietary software like Steam, Spotify, and Discord. It makes installing those a breeze.
That is probably the most important use case. It is good not to allow proprietary software to extend their tendrils beyond the sandbox.
The point of Gentoo is it’s configurability. Gentoo has binary packages in it’s main repo’s and even an experimental binhost for precompiled packages. Forcing one to use any one thing is against the Gentoo philosophy.
That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying my misconception. I think I will set that up. I have a couple of Dell Optiplexes that are bumming it out right now. I can put one to work with Gentoo.
Gentoo is pretty rad but be prepared for the compile times and to fail a few times (it’s a learning experience!). You could even speed things up by setting up Distcc on a beefy rig to build stuff for your optiplexes.
Okay, that seems cool. I had not considered that a possibility. It would be fun to “stream” any compilations to the Optiplexes.