this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 24 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I know this is probably sarcastic but honestly Gentoo's great if you don't trust binaries by default. Nothing is an absolute guarantee against compromise, but it's an awful lot harder to compromise a source code repository or a compiler without anyone noticing (especially if you stick to stable versions) than it is to compromise a particular binary of some random software package. I trust most package maintainers, but they're typically overworked volunteers and not all of them are going to have flawless security or be universally trustworthy.

I like building my own binaries from source code whenever possible.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 9 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Genuine question from a longtime Linux user who never tried Gentoo - doesn't updating take forever? I used a source build of firefox for a bit and the build took forever, not to mention the kernel itself

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Depends on your system specs, but.... yes, generally speaking. There is a reason most people and most distros use binaries. Even Gentoo can use binaries for some stuff.

Are you going to suffer significant damage if your updates take forever though? What's the hurry? The number of times I have literally needed the absolute latest version of something installed right now are pretty damn minimal. The major exception is widespread, exploited zero-day remote-access vulnerabilities, but those are rare, and especially rare are ones that affect the exact versions and configurations of software that I am currently using and cannot reasonably just opt to "stop" using. Even so, there are usually other ways to block the network traffic, disable the offending part of the configuration, or otherwise mitigate the risk. Besides, there's nothing stopping you from literally just downloading a patched binary if that's what you need at that moment.

Patience is a virtue, and it's generally good for you. You don't have to be addicted to constant updates, but you do need to be thoughtful and understand how to build defense-in-depth.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's not so much "I must have the latest version NOW" and more that while it was building my system load would spike from 0.1 to 7+ and everything ran like shit for like half an hour.

I'm a messy, impatient boy - I know my limitations!

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 1 points 2 months ago

That's fair, it's certainly not for everyone (nor for every situation).

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