The Gentoo Trade Offer: Your Time for Micro-Optimizations

Description

This image uses the popular 'Trade Offer' meme format to poke fun at the Gentoo Linux distribution. A man with long hair in a business suit looks directly at the viewer with a serious, negotiating expression, his hands clasped together. A red banner at the top of the image declares 'TRADE OFFER'. To his left, the text reads 'i receive: 2 days for compiling os', and to his right, 'you receive: -0.5s when starting os'. The word 'Gentoo' is written in a large white font over the man's torso. The technical joke satirizes the core premise of Gentoo, a source-based Linux distribution that requires users to compile the entire operating system and its packages from source code. This process is notoriously time-consuming, as the meme exaggerates. The punchline is that this massive investment of time and effort yields a comically minuscule reward - saving half a second on system startup. It's a classic commentary on the law of diminishing returns in performance optimization, a topic deeply familiar to systems programmers and performance-tuning enthusiasts

Comments

116

Anonymous ★ Top Pick The real benefit of Gentoo isn't the faster boot time, it's the two days of peace and quiet you get while pretending your computer is doing something productive

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

The real benefit of Gentoo isn't the faster boot time, it's the two days of peace and quiet you get while pretending your computer is doing something productive
Anonymous

Gentoo ROI: 48 hours compiling to save 0.5 s per boot - break-even after 345,600 reboots, or one kube-node crash a day for the next millennium. Ship it
Anonymous

The real trade offer is explaining to your PM why the CI pipeline takes 48 hours because someone decided to add '-march=native -O3' flags to everything, only to discover the 0.5s boot time improvement was actually measurement error from the NTP daemon syncing
Anonymous

Ah yes, Gentoo - where you spend 48 hours compiling your OS to shave off half a second from boot time, only to realize you've rebooted twice in the last six months. It's the ultimate expression of developer optimization theater: investing exponentially more time than you'll ever save, but hey, at least your USE flags are perfectly tuned. The real kicker? By the time compilation finishes, there's already a new kernel version to compile. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey... and the electricity bill
Anonymous

Gentoo economics: 48h of -O3/LTO and kernel pruning to save 0.5s at boot - then the box runs for 300 days and the only hot path optimized was our ego
Anonymous

Two days pruning Kconfig and flipping USE/LTO to save 0.5s on the one cold boot after updates - the finest p50 optimization money can burn
Anonymous

Gentoo: proving premature optimization isn't just the root of all evil - it's a full-time job
@mxkrsv 2y

Gentoo has literally no purpose, KYS
1. @mekosko 2y
  
  He meant Keep Yourself Safe
2. @endisn16h 2y
  
  L take
@sylfn 2y

please use english in this chat tr(ua->en): fuck off
@revolutionarygirlutena 2y

🍿
@sylfn 2y

remember that russian govt and russian people are not the same.
1. dev_meme 2y
  
  Ok I'm taking the bait. Sorry. But who else? We can also take this to DMs bc it's v OT here.
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  I'm not sure how sincere you are with this, but in case you are — while the russian government is mostly a subset of russian people, it's only that subset, and it's not even representative. there's quite a lot of people who are theoretically against the policies of the government yet can't do anything about them, because this whole shithole of a country is based on preventing angry people from having any impact
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  The Russian government wages a war on LGBT minorities. This means I'm a criminal and I can be theoretically punished by law the moment I express myself. What do you want me to do, walk around with a trans flag pin instead of trying to live a semi-fulfilling life? I can't even leave this place, because, if I really cut to the chase, my mental state makes me almost disabled, to the point where taking a short walk is nigh-impossible
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  More importantly, I think you're trying to make a difficult topic look simple, because humans crave simplicity and reason, and that's just not the case in modern society
  
  dev_meme 2y
  
  Thanks for explaining. I don't fully buy this line of reasoning but also won't argue further here. I may read up on this topic if I find it interesting and perhaps you can (if you want to) talk with a more informed me at some future moment.
2. @mold_in 2y
  
  its russian govt killing people, right 🫡
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  and not me
  
  @mold_in 2y
  
  i havnt mentioned you
  
  @AmmisRiat 2y
  
  Man, have you heard anything about conscription slavery?🤨
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  Man, have you heard about the number of people who never even tried to avoid enlisting into the russian army? The number of people who were like: “oh hell, big govnmnt tells me to go kill some innocent people, oh man, i have no choice” instead of, you know, just ignoring? Or sabotaging? Or simply hiding from mobilization?
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  and how am i supposed to hide from it?
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  Lol. Typical “what can we do, it’s impossible to resist” mentality. Why don’t you pick your laptop and take a trip into far away village and spend your time with “beryozki”? Hell, dude, people were cutting their fingers in Germany to not join vermacht, but that’s completely different, right?
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  You know not everyone has a far away village and if they do, chances are the neighbors would be happy to hand you over?
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  the problem is not in "i cant think of anything i can do to help myself/others" its in "my govt is so fucked up they nearly banned me from existence and i will literally die (or commit suicide) if i ever get caught"
  
  @RiedleroD 2y
  
  touch grass instead of telling people to "simply" run from their government
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  how is that even simple
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  I think you are underestimating how hard it is to go against your environment. It's easy to say "just ignore/sabotage/etc." when people around you would think of and accept the same solution. Even ignoring the technical difficulties (not everyone can hide, really, you have to live somewhere and touch grass, after all), the mental pressure is just that big
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  You mean that killing innocent people and risking to die from the fpv drone near avdiivka is putting less mental pressure in the person?
  
  @RiedleroD 2y
  
  kill or be killed. now shut
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  It's not quite killing innocent people, though. Not immediately. If your choice is between being forced into armed forces or handing yourself in, the latter is easier and does not have any immediate negative consequences. When you're training, there aren't any immediate negative consequences either. It's not kill or be killed, not immediately. It's just that taking the easier solution at each step turns out to be worse in the end, even though each step was optimal
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Like, yes, sure, some people want to kill. That's bad. But I think you're underestimating the role of willpower here
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  It's not just a question of morals, it's more about preserving status quo. Why don't you commit sabotage on factories to save the Earth from global warming? I'm quite certain that's possible and would lead to some sort of improvements, but the chance of having negative consequences is big enough that you avoid doing that. Even then, perhaps with a good plan you could work around that and achieve the goal in (let's say) 10 years. What's stopping you? I think it's partly fear and partly desire to live a fulfilling life in the moment as opposed to in 10 years. Well, same thing with Russians, I guess
  
  @RiedleroD 2y
  
  …fair point
  
  @AmmisRiat 2y
  
  Lol
3. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Those reactions are pretty mixed… Ig propaganda will only be reveiled in decades
@CcxCZ 2y

You know, this was true… circa 2006. Back then most distros shipped binaries for i586(Pentium) or i686(Pentium Pro) because those were from before the point where instruction sets diverged greatly. So yes, optimizing for your CPU used to be a big deal. Then amd64 happened and it already had nearly everything in the instruction set that compiler could use for unassisted optimization. You would still get nice improvement in memory usage though if you decided to slim down your system. Which then became another selling point for a while because it was the only big distro where you could decide that actually no, you don't want Lennartware and various other Gnome-mandated nonsense. It's still the go-to if you want something different in your configuration than Alpine provides or Gnome requires.
@CcxCZ 2y

Also, on my 5yo laptop the core system takes, like, a hour?
@SamsonovAnton 2y

0.5 seconds at least once a day, times 365 days a year — that's whole 3 minutes you save each year! 🤓
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Why, you restart your computer every day?
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  linux-git on arch moment
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  would it use master? next?
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  idk
  
  @CcxCZ 2y
  
  With the cadence of exploits in browser engines and how big chunk of resources they take, that may kinda be true even without the hardware reboot.
  
  @SamsonovAnton 2y
  
  "Restart" is not a proper word — I start some computers each day after shutting them down the day before. Why not? I mean I also use always-on workstations, but why keeping the hardware on and spend electricity, accumulate dust and reduce fan lifetime when it's of no need at all?
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  i suspend my laptop for the night instead of powering it off because that saves me from re-creating my working environment each day
  
  @SamsonovAnton 2y
  
  Yeah, I also suspend the desktop in my bedroom — but have hard time covering that freaking blue blinking light. 💡🤬
2. @CcxCZ 2y
  
  More like 0.5s off random GUI application start. Especially on spinning rust back then. But that's past long gone, unless you want to get your room warm and cozy with some k6.
@purplesyringa 2y

You realize that's pure racism?
@purplesyringa 2y

You say that like that's an exclusively good thing
@purplesyringa 2y

@RiedleroD Can I borrow your sense of morals for a sec and get some sort of authoritative support here please?
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  yeah sorry no need that stance on racism was clear enough
2. @RiedleroD 2y
  
  banned. not tolerating that
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  thank you
@AmindaEU 2y

I have been seeing Russian LGBT refugees since I started being around LGBT* community and it was long before the current crisises
@RiedleroD 2y

@purplesyringa fix when? ETA? now?
@revolutionarygirlutena 2y

thank you for the popcorn material 🍿
@RiedleroD 2y

what the hell
@artem_stratiienko 2y

Sorry, did not understand. Is it forbidden to reply in the tread?
1. @RiedleroD 2y
  
  it's forbidden to be an asshat
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  Is it a case of power moderating? Am I being abusive or toxic? Don’t get your point here: Reply guy is an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner. I guess we are just having a debate here. Not with you, by the way.
  
  @RiedleroD 2y
  
  you're being incredibly condecending about a topic you obviously don't understand. listen to alisa.
@artem_stratiienko 2y

So, if I understand correctly, russians are not responsible for the war because they can not resist because resistance makes them nervous and they take a path of the least resistance
1. @RiedleroD 2y
  
  question: what nationality are you?
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  I am Ukrainian, and you?
  
  @RiedleroD 2y
  
  austrian. look, I'm sorry for being rude about it, but yes, most people don't have the spoons to resist their government.
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  Dude, I am not talking about active resistance here, I am talking about just moving to another location so you don’t get captured and sent to die
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  I've heard quite a few stories where people went to army because they were promised funds, so I guess money plays a role here
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  Russians who agree to kill innocent people for “funds” are not responsible too?
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  They are responsible, I'm not saying they aren't; I'm saying you are responsible just as well, and that this has less to do with nationality and more with human nature
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  I am responsible for my city being bombarded with rockets? Seriously?
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Yes, in a way. We could have predicted Putin is going to start a war, and you could have killed him before that, after all
  
  @artem_stratiienko 2y
  
  I could have killed Putin and since I did not I am responsible for my country being torn apart by war. Honestly, I can’t find any words here. Children die, girls being raped and this is their fault because they did not kill putin
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Listen, I'm not shaming you. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. You live your life, and that's okay. Russians are living their own lifes too. If you want them to change their way of life for the worse due to some external changes, well, apply that to yourself too
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  bold of you to assume i live, i only exist
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  well
  
  @klemaai 2y
  
  geez you’re full of shit
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  exactly where?
  
  @AmmisRiat 2y
  
  Is Zelensky, who shook hands with Putin and smiled at him before the war, to blame? Although Putin at that time was already depriving a huge part of the rights of Russian citizens.
  
  @AmmisRiat 2y
  
  Give me money
2. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Yes, something like that. I'm not going to pretend Russians are good, they aren't. But neither is everyone else. People aren't good in the sense that they choose their actions as to maximize the "value" as specified by their morals, people are just... well, people, they don't make reasonable decisions. You have the right to be angry about that, but then you have to turn that anger onto yourself too, because you aren't good by this definition (neither are you bad, though, please don't think I'm saying you're worse than someone or anything like this)
3. @AmmisRiat 2y
  
  Putin destroyed Russia before his hands reached Ukraine
@artem_stratiienko 2y

Of course, everyone needs to take some action to end this, right? Except russians, of course Because they are nervous
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  No, not just Russians. But you too, okay? And everyone else on Earth, please
@sylfn 2y

(i actually thought about that but i dont have enough resources to do that)
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Good news, you can get them! How about getting some initial base by getting recruited and then slowly building some illegal money laundering scheme?
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  sounds like "how about commiting a literal suicide"
@artem_stratiienko 2y

@RiedleroD no warning for this kind of stuff? No warning for a case of country-level victim blaming?
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Did you just ask why you weren't banned yet?
2. @RiedleroD 2y
  
  I exited the discussion as I'm still technically on mod vacation
@artem_stratiienko 2y

Maybe Alisa does not understand what she says? Or should I still listen to her?
1. @RiedleroD 2y
  
  alisa knows what she's talking about. I haven't looked at the log, but I trust her to hold the right opinions
  
  @sylfn 2y
  
  "i am a cute girl therefore i am right"
2. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  Listen, I'm not saying Ukraine's bad or Ukrainians are bad. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I didn't mean to crap on Ukraine more than any other country in the world
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  I meant to crap on all of them evenly
  
  @purplesyringa 2y
  
  It's okay to feel anger at Russians, we're part of the problem, just like everyone else. Or perhaps we all aren't, if you believe in determinism. I'm just saying responsibility and fault are both more difficult topics than they seem to be (and they're different btw), and you sort of have to build a non-self-contradicting mental model if you want to apply this reasoning to other people's actions instead of merely releasing emotions
@sylfn 2y

more like ancom
1. @sylfn 2y
  
  (which is based btw)
@purplesyringa 2y

it wouldn't
@sylfn 2y

"dont be an asshole" principle
@AmmisRiat 2y

Collective responsibility is bad⛄️🙊
1. @sylfn 2y
  
  for everyone? 😈 /j
@Algoinde 2y

The tldr here is if you didn't manage to prevent the war all by yourself, don't expect others to. The starting point of this argument was brazen nationalism dictated by a grudge against an invader. Which is emotionally justified, but is not logically justified. Target and hate people directly committing murder and jailing everyone who opposes murder, as well as the weak-willed who carry out murder out of fear. Don't assume the entire nation hates you and wants you dead. I've had a run-in with an Ukrainian group that refused to use my free API (no alternatives btw) and contribute an Ukrainian translation for it just because i'm Russian. I can understand these people emotionally, but I don't respect their reasoning capabilities with regard to my own moral values, which are dictated by personal allegiance and responsibility. There's a telling factor which is goalpost moving: they support the war; no I don't; they work for russia; no I don't; they pay taxes in russia; no i don't; their parents pay taxes in russia; no they're not - at which point i realize the whole point is to find reasons to hate and attack. Why? It's much easier and effortless to attack someone who is not hostile, is thousand miles away, and is not an immediate danger to you - all just to feel vindicated about it. It's harder to confront the actual destruction and evil.
@Algoinde 2y

If you're in IT and make fuckoff money, friendly reminder to donate to anything that would help save Ukrainian lives (and do research that the donation channel is not corrupt, as this happened before)
Deleted Account 2y

I think the people using arch spend more time learning it and wasting a lot more time for compilation than saving time in 5 years just waiting extra 0.5sec
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  I think you're confusing Arch with Gentoo
  
  Deleted Account 2y
  
  You are very gen too
@Nefrace 2y

oh noes
@ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y

💀💀😂😂
@asm3r 2y

@@@ Scrolling dev public @@@ See gentoo post @@@ See 100+ comments @@@ 10 about gentoo @@@ 100+ about rusni pizda. Btw, I'm Ukrainian. Gentoo rulez. But not because 0.5 second optimization.
1. @callofvoid0 2y
  
  I thought ukrainian doesn't have that x-flipped N
2. @hotsadboi 2y
  
  Welcome to the World Wide Web; a place where no one is safe from hohlosrach!
  
  @Algoinde 2y
  
  More like "Welcome to the Earth, where politics-dictated animosity still exists for some reason"

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The Gentoo Trade Offer: Your Time for Micro-Optimizations

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