Why do you use gentoo?

hifidelity · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2002 Posts: 17

I was just curious as to why everyone chooses to use gentoo. I know i use it because It's fun tweaking it and customizing it, and a little bit of all the reasons below

(last minute note)
Doh don't say it because I already know i should have listed portage

Maedhros · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:39 am Post subject:

Because it does everything I want it to do. I've been distro-hopping for a while - started with Mandrake, tried moving to Debian, tried SuSE for a while, then moved to LFS. I would probably still be there now, except the support for my hardware (amd64) was a bit dubious, so I came to Gentoo. I can tinker with it to my heart's content, and if it stops working, it's easy to reinstall things. Of course, the other bonus is that I can afford it... I am a student after all!
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MatzeOne · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:56 am Post subject:

voted for "It does what I want, WHEN I want!"

and it sounds cool, when it's correctly spoken :lol:

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hifidelity · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2002 Posts: 17

overwhelmingly lopsided so far :roll:

Maedhros · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:15 am Post subject:

Well, to be fair, most of the poll questions apply to GNU/Linux, not just to Gentoo... Quite a few of them are true, they're just not particularly relevant, as they apply to Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, etc!

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jwj · Apprentice Joined: 07 May 2004 Posts: 240

I use gentoo, because I dont like debians social contract.

Syntaxis · Guru Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 511 Location: London, UK

superjaded · l33t Joined: 05 Jul 2002 Posts: 802

I don't know, maybe I get some kind of weird subconcious happy feeling when I use a source based distribution.

The only three *nix based OSes I've really been able to use has been Slackware(and I never used its package system, always compiled straight from source), FreeBSD and gentoo. For some reason, I've never had the patience for binary based distroes. I couldn't figure debian out. -_- And while RH was one of the first distroes I ever tried out, rpm's manpage confused me to no end.

But I think what makes me stay with gentoo over FreeBSD and Slack is the simple fact that, as they say, I can do what I want with it. It's fairly easy to find an ebuild of whatever I want to install (e.g. BMG's GNOME 2.7.1 ebuilds are already out). Its bleeding edge nature is probably what strikes a chord with me.

asimon · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 8:27 am Post subject:

I don't use Gentoo, you insensitive clod!

MatzeOne · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 10:05 am Post subject:

Pulie · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 10:11 am Post subject:

These forums are great!

MatzeOne · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 10:12 am Post subject:

yeah... that's right... the support of other users in these forums are very very great!
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tr4nce · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 68 Location: Argentina

I switched from Slackware a few days ago, set up my SO just with the stuff that I use, in their latest releases. Stable, Simple, and it manage with great shape "TEH DEPENDENCE PROBLEM!". IMO it's the better Distro for Medium/Advanced users.

You can start with Mandrake, try Slack and Debian, and when you install gentoo, you say "That's it, this is My Distro"

az_zel · n00b Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 69

The main reason for me is what you can learn about Linux just by using Gentoo. I've been using Linux now for over 7 years now and I never really felt like I knew much until I started hacking at gentoo. It is just a hacker's/tweaker's dream.

asimon · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:56 pm Post subject:

oniq · Guru Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 597 Location: Connecticut

It does what I want, WHEN I want! And portage rocks

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Suicidal · l33t Joined: 30 Jul 2003 Posts: 959 Location: /dev/null

I voted "Stable, Secure, Awesome."

But to be totally honest the fact that it is probably the least stale distro out ther it runs great on my older computers that cant effectively run Windows.

Portage makes it extremely easy for me to keep the system up to date as well as flexible I can specify how,when and where in syncs and downloads packages.

Ultimately its flexibility is it's greatest feature.

uglyb0b · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 280

Gentoo makes me cool. And I love that it doesn't screw up when I don't want it to. If Gentoo wasn't in existence, then I'd probably be using slackware.
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spb · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 3:22 pm Post subject:

It's easier to break by installing bleeding-edge software?

Yes, a large proportion of my system is on -* keywords, and built with gcc 3.5. Find me another distro that can do that quite so easily, and I might just switch. If its package management is as good as Portage, that is.

ed0n · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 3:43 pm Post subject:

Becouse it's a good distro.

sapphirecat · Guru Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 376

halok · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 4:30 pm Post subject:

tsunam · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Feb 2004 Posts: 343

Where's the I tried redhat 5 years ago and hated it. Then tried gentoo 5 years later and loved it. having become a linux person ever since

HydroSan · Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:34 pm Post subject:

Please refer to my topic: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=181743

:lol:

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hifidelity · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2002 Posts: 17

My first delving into linux was about 5 years ago. I had cable modem so i had free reign to try out many different distros. At that time 2.2 was stable and 2.4 was up and coming just like 2.6 is now. I used redhat and took a class on it. I liked it, but I thought overall it was lacking.. especially since i was an avid gamer. Then i tried mandrake/slack/suse etc.. none of them really struck a chord. then i did debian i really liked it alot, but when i started getting religious with debian, a guy on freenode suggested i try gentoo it was "his favorite" so i tried it and it was love after that, i simply couldn't use another distro.

Since then I have nuked xp pro and did gentoo (i've gone back and forth frequently, each time i install gentoo I refine my linux skills a bit more and learn more) If anything i must say i have learned a ton about linux with gentoo that i never would have with rh. the only reason i go back to windows is because i like my games

and i simply refuse to dual boot. my laptop still runs xp, but my main box has been gentoo for awhile. i'm running gnome 2.6.

i have 2 games, frozen-bubble, and ut2004

my system is a xp 2500+(oc'd to 3200) 512 mushkin ram. my vid card is a msi geforce 5700 fx 256mb ram w/ tv-in...

i hope to maybe do some video capturing with mythtv in the future, but haven't had time. Since I have been going to college i don't have much time for games, so linux suites me just fine

My latest delvings are setting up a gentoo firewall with shorewall for a business, and more recently trying to learn latex (i want to write all my term papers in it

anyways, gentoo is awesome! if anything i think it lacks the flexibility to pop-in and go, but thats counter to the gentoo experience

at least theres GRP if you wanted to do that. (but i have yet to do that, i'm hardcore

i setup an old 233 pII box on gentoo/directfb/gnome for my girlfriends brother, all he does is listen to music and chat on gaim browse internet etc.. runs fantastic

anyhow, long live gentoo!