this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The best would be to ask a Gentoo user. :D
Disadvantage (besides the update procedure mentioned by the other answers here) is, it might take lot of time, download lot of dependencies and files and need additional space on your drive to compile. It can be a hassle to install and setup the required tools and libraries too. This highly depends on the project itself if its worth it. In example nobody in their right mind wants to compile their web browser (Firefox, Chromium, whatever) themselves (sorry if I offended someone with that. :D). But a simple and short C program is as simple as running
makecommand in example (given the dependencies are installed, which are most likely for simple programs after a few programs have been compiled).Most of the time you don't need to compile software. Especially if you trust the source or its in the official repositories of your distribution.
Depends on what you mean by that.