Love Gentoo, but sorry I recommended it to friends :(

[alamuru420123]

I was an ardent Slackware fan before I tried Gentoo. The transition wasn't an easy one. It took me 1 week and 4 (stage1, stage2, stage3 and stage1 again) installations to realise that one of my 2 256mb RAMs got fried. When I removed the conflicting object, Gentoo was up and running with a command shell in 5 hours. By morning, KDE was ready. I loved the package management. I was glad I spent so much time reading the manual (5 times) and everything worked perfectly since then. Also, anytime I got stuck up, I got answers from here.

But, being the crazy guy that I am (loving to brag and telling everyone 'Gentoo is the greatest'), I was unfortunate enough to convince three of my other friends to move to Gentoo ... one at a time. Of course, I spoon-fed the first guy and showed him the breaks and the important points in the handbook which are to be noted. It took me one day! Not much problems there as he gradually read the handbook himself and it worked out great.

The came the other two. According to them, since I've already installed Gentoo, I'm well versed with the handbook and so, I could just guide them over it and have it up and running for them as soon as possible. Not being a very good teacher, I agreed and helped them in installing. Now, even after it's working they still want me to help them all the time.

"I just pressed -5 in etc-update!"

"How do I unmask packages?"

"Do I have to rc-update everything I emerge?"

The point is ... they simply don't want to read the f***ing manual just because it's too big. I've finally had to wash my hands off the whole thing because it was getting too irritating. I can't maintain 3 computers all the time. When it reached the point where, whenever they spotted me, they would ask me questions about nothing other than Gentoo, I decided to draw the line.

I told them that everything was in the handbook and all the answers to any other problems were available in the forums.

Now, I wasn't rude, but surely, they'll think I've grown too big for my shoes.

Long story short ... I've decided not to recommend Gentoo to anyone anymore. Maybe in a casual discussion, I might say it's pretty good, but there's no way I'm gonna commit myself to "Gentoo is the greatest" anymore. Atleast not with people who want to switch from Fedora and Ubuntu to something new.

PS: If anybody finds my rant rude or abusing Gentoo, I assure you that I have been using Gentoo for the past 5-6 months and ever since I started, I've booted into windows like maybe 10 times.

[frostschutz]

[PaveQ]

Well I wouldn't just give gentoo to noob, maybe ubuntu Althought I started using linux with gentoo and learned things way better

[BlackEdder]

I do agree. I only recommend gentoo to people that like to get their hands dirty. The rest I mostly recommend ubuntu, but that's also hit and miss.

[batistuta]

this is not a linux lesson. It's a lesson for life. There's not a universal tool, a universal programming language, a universal woman (or guy), a universal car, or a universal OS.
For some poeple, Windows XP is the best and I wouldn't recommend anything rather than Windows to them (I know, shame on me )
For some people, Gentoo rocks and I wouldn't recommend anything else to them.

Using the right thing for each problem is one of the secrets of life. Maybe you've missed that in this case

[alamuru420123]

[tsunam]

[Earthwings]

[Tamsco]

[mlsbraves]

I used slackware for about 2 years and just recently I built a new 64-bit system so I decided to try gentoo. I admit the install was very time consuming but thats what the manual and these forums are for. So far I'm really enjoying it and when I learn enough about it I might switch my laptop over to it as well. I have some other systems that I know I'll always leave slackware running on, but for some of my faster systems I might just be on a turn here. For newbies I always suggest slackware b/c its an easy install(and makes the user learn the basic of linux/unix). And once its installed the most problems I hear from them are the simple manual configs they need to do like there mouse wheel won't work, etc. The thing I'm liking the most so far is the portage system.

[Ctrl+Alt+Del]

I used to make the very same mistake by recommending gentoo to users that where simply to lazy or not bright enough to actually make it through. I spent countless hours explaining stuff to the best of my abilities only to be asked the same stuff every 3 weeks.
Well i learned my lessons and will not recommend stuff blindly anymore, if people ask me it will try to outline the differences between the different distributions and leave the decision to them. If they wanna stick to windows and reboot their fileserver once a week they are free to do so. If they wanna stick to Suse so they can 'add hardware with a wizzard' let them. Just because it works for me doesn't mean i have to force on other peeps. A lesson most religious people have yet to learn
The best pre-test for a coming gentoo user is mostlikely his ability to read the docs, so if he's capable to read/skim most of the handbook before installing he should be ready to go.

[alamuru420123]

Wow, and I thought I was the only guy who made this mistake .

[avieth]

I don't recommend gentoo to my friends. I love laughing at them if they get a virus or some spyware and believe me, that happens a lot.

[alamuru420123]

[batistuta]

This is what I recommend to my friends:

Those that need special software for school/university other than office: Windows XP (sad, but like it or not, all special SW comes for Win only). And don't start with the Crossoffice or wine thingy. Most people don't want to get into that.

Those that have special hardware or can't spend more than 5 min getting new hardware to work: Windows XP (sad, but Win has the broadest HW support). It workds out of the box.

People that really *need* windows but are afraid of surfing due to spyware or need a secure sandbox for their kids when they browse: Windows XP, but disable all links to browsers, and instead, run vmwareplayer with a virtual machine that has just a browser (like the internet appliance). This is a *very* safe choice for browsing, did this for my cousing who's kid klicks everywhere without thinking.

Those that just need office stuff+surfing and don't care about computers (99% of the people, including my parents): Kubuntu. This is a great choice. Pretty secure as well. I like KDE, but Ubuntu is a good choice as well.

Pleople with money that want a clean system, good HW support, and don't want to bother: MacOS X. It is the best compromise out there between stability, security, support, etc etc. Price is the only issue.

Old system that needs only browsing: DSL. Can't beat that. If not enought space, run from a liveCD

Last but not least:
If you want to learn and get your hands dirty and have *lots of time* to learn it the first time: Gentoo, of course. You can do it in two ways: get a stable branch. Do a sync and update world once a week and be happy.
Method 2: always look for cutting edge methods, update your kernel as soon as a new one comes out, use unstable packages, rebuild your system 24/7 with the latest gcc available, etc.

In contrary to what many people think, maintaining stable Gentoo is quite easy. Mixing branches is what usually takes time.

That's my view. But important: don't suggest people to like what you like, you'll only confuse them and frustrate them. Understand what they want, and give them that.

[Belial`]

[frostschutz]

comes close: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

EDIT: I may have to take that back, it says

[Belial`]

[pilla]

thing with tiny holes.
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