Frequently Asked Question

What is a source-based distribution like Gentoo?

In a source-based distribution, the "package" you install is not a precompiled binary but a recipe, an ebuild in Gentoo, an APKBUILD on Alpine when building from source, a Nix expression on NixOS, that the package manager uses to fetch the upstream tarball, configure it for your machine, compile it, and install the result. Gentoo's emerge is the canonical example: emerge nginx reads the ebuild, downloads the source, runs ./configure with your chosen USE flags, compiles, and installs.

The advantages are real: you choose which features are compiled in (USE flags), which CPU instruction set is targeted (-march=native), and which optional dependencies are pulled. The cost is time, a full system update on Gentoo can take hours, and complexity, because every build can fail in new and interesting ways. Gentoo maintains a small, devoted user base; for most people the trade-off is not worth it, and binary packages plus a sandboxed format for the exceptional case is the pragmatic choice.