Why do you love Gentoo ? (I love thread)

EAD · Guru Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 352

hi, I have seen there is a lot of "I don't like Gentoo" threads and so on.
so, I want to hear the other side of the story, Why do we love Gentoo :twisted:

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

because of Larry (the cow)

EAD · Guru Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 352

I meant, what do you think are the resons to choose Gentoo over other OS ??

masterdriverz · Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject:

Choice of what I want to be on my computer, not what some dev thinks should be on my computer. Reduced cruft from stuff that I don't need (I don't want that Objective-C stuff) etc. Also the community spirit and bug fixing speed is an added bonus.

richard_ablitt · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Posts: 99

I occasionally try out binary based Linux distrobutions (most recently Suse and Ubuntu), but I keep coming back to Gentoo. A few reasons:
For me, ~amd64 gives me the latest versions of programs without losing much stability or dependancy problems.
It's nice to be able to just emerge Enlightenment rather than having to install a load of -dev packages first.
I can get all the codecs I need by just emerging vlc or xine, I don't need to go round enabling repositories.
I can learn Linux by watching text scrolling past. (:

Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

It actually works. I need dmraid to deal with my onboard RAID jobbie (I'd probably have done it in software if I'd known what it'd be like), Windows blatantly fails to install no matter what I do, and Ubuntu still haven't figured out support for it.

Of course I was using Gentoo before I had this machine, so I'd say it's a nice mix between automation by Portage, and doing it yourself. I like that nothing's hidden from me, and that I have the freedom to do what I want with my system - including the freedom to b0rk it up nicely if I try.
Plus it's damn easy to try development software like e17 or XGL (which I'd want to play with on another distro anyway) because I've already got all the development tools installed that I need.
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playfool · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:52 am Post subject:

I have no special love for Gentoo aside the fact that it's more free software which is always good, if a certain segment is served well by Gentoo then that speaks to free softwares strengths and adaptive abilities. More happy liberated users is a good thing.

valkyrite · Apprentice Joined: 19 Sep 2002 Posts: 241

I started gentoo because it was the cool thing. A gentoo user is perceived to be smarter blah blah.

Now I use gentoo since I can do with it what I want. Period.

Kidov · n00b Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 56 Location: Finland

Maybe because of the portage. As someone already said you don't have to go round enabling repositories, etc. Gentoo is also well documented for newbies. It's the only distro I've ever managed to set up and running properly.

Thanks to all those who have participated making Gentoo-Wiki, Handbook and all those other good "manuals".

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

the init system
net-analyzer/*
CFLAGS && USE FLAGS

Most of all that it doesn't force any certian package on me for MTA I can have postfix, qmail or ssmtp. For cron I can have vixie-cron, dcron or fcron, etc....

tylerwylie · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 7:13 am Post subject:

The community here is the most helpful, intellligent, and dedicated out of any other distribution's community. These people are the only reasons I can continue to use this system in peace.

mannygentoo · n00b Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 41

To me gentoo is lots of fun, a different and original distro, and the closest you can get to FreeBSD on the linux world.
BSD vs Linux rant
(but basically im a slacker) :wink:

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Drake Mallard · n00b Joined: 13 Jun 2004 Posts: 16

Portage. There's nothing like being able to patch and update everything on my system with a couple of quick commands, force or restrict various versions of software, set options (i.e. use flags) so I don't have to do things like install CUPS when I don't have a printer, and do all of this without the dependency spaghetti I experienced with Debian.

I like the init system as well. It's also helpful that Gentoo's community is large enough that you can usually get support for even obscure issues.

runningwithscissors · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject:

First time I saw a coloured-by-default command line.
Rock solid, since I only use stable packages.
First Linux install on which I got everything working.

Mattek · n00b Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 5

Great package (source based) system with an incredible huge and smart support comunity. The system work much of the time greately and if it dont you could alway go and try to make it work yourself in any aspect and overall in freedom (and in peace of cource

).

thanks to all...

geniux · Veteran Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1400 Location: /home

Well, Portage is one of the big reasons why I love it. Gentoo also had all features I searched for: easy to install packages (ebuilds rock), easy to keep up to date and all packages you have to chose from

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MSI K9N SLI Platinum, Enermax Liberty 500W
1GB RAM Crucial DDR2 667MHz, MSI nVidia 7600GS 256MB
400GB + 250GB Samsung SATAII HDD
Gentoo - BeyondSources 2.6.19-20

yoshi314 · l33t Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 850 Location: PL

i've been using x86 ~x86 , amd64 ~amd64 glibc-based gentoo. i've just started x86-uclibc, and i'm on my way for ~x86-uclibc , soon if i figure it out i'll try ~amd64-uclibc (if possible). just out of curiosity.

i simply love the flexibility of this distribution. you can run it on variety of architectures (like many non-x86 ones), and in variety of forms (like glibc/uclibc/embedded etc etc). the use-flags and stuff are nice. but i love the fact that i can do many weird things with my gentoo. you can even use portage to build a separate system

try that with regular binary distribution

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~amd64
shrink your /usr/portage with squashfs+aufs

EAD · Guru Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 352

I havn't used Gentoo too much, but I LOVE IT :twisted:

It has a great CLI interface for everything
Portage is great
I can really put what I want in the system, and not what other guys want.
I can cotrol every aspact of the init process, and the scripts.
WIKI WIKI and WIKI , in Gentoo the help is very good and nice and so is th ecummuntiy.
and ofcurse, Gentoo is fast and blessing edge when you use ~ and all the unstable. :twisted:

djpearman · n00b Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 42 Location: Germany

Support for multiple architectures and the control and flexibility of Portage.

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

It does what I want it to with minimal fuss. Also, the init system is actually sane..

Cinquero · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jun 2004 Posts: 249

No dependency hell.

Transparency of the ebuild system: seamless and easy integration of own software into the system (/usr), easily adjustable packages, ebuilds provide a convenient way to share knowledge (on how to install things :-)

).

Open-source distributions distributed via binary packages just doesn't feel right. :-)

djdunn · l33t Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 812

it works kinda like BSD and i was less afraid of it for that reason
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― Plato

xef · Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:56 am Post subject:

Cinquero · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jun 2004 Posts: 249

[quote="xef"][quote="richard_ablitt"]I can get all the codecs I need by just emerging vlc or xine, I don't need to go round enabling repositories.[/quote]

I really hate ubuntu for this![/quote]

Come on, Ubuntu has a quite nice installer -- it even includes the additional repositories which have to be included manually in Fedora Core. And, to be honest, there is just no open WMV9+ codec... but, hey, then why are all these websites using RealMedia AND Windows Media formats although there is MPEG-4 and DivX? Crazy world.

Tin · Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:05 pm Post subject:

(Staying in the topic)

I love gentoo because :

The great installation manual (first time I really know what I really do on my system)
The great help community (forum, mailing list, wiki)
The portage update system
The great stability (always run in stable mode except ati drivers)
The fact that I run it with fluxbox with a vmware with xp inside, and that one day, I forgot my cpu management in powersave mode (600MHz instead of 1800) and I notice it more than one week later (and I use it at work 8 hours a day !)
The feeling to be a true geek

Gentoo is great for me :-)

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Tin, the gentoobie