Question about Gentoo

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

I've recently made the decision to switch to Linux, and I"m trying to figure out what distribution to use. I've only ever used Linux at work the past month or so and I"m liking it a lot. I have used both Ubuntu and Fedora, they seem to handle fairly similar. I was curious about Gentoo because I've read about its customization. But I've also been reading you need to know a bit about Linux to use it. I don't know that much about Linux, but I've been in a Unix environment for the past 4 years at school. To let you know I am in school for a Computer Science/Software Development degree and that's one of the reasons for the switch. I don't want to overwhelm myself with something I"m not ready for. With my given background, would Gentoo be a good decision? Is installation as easy as Ubuntu and Fedora? Thank you in advance!

-S

EDIT: Forgot to mention I will be using this for gaming a little bit, nothing extreme. I play WoW and steam games, though from what I read I can just use Wine to help with that. I also seem to have put this in the Documentation forum when I wanted to put it in the Gentoo Chat forum.

szczerb · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject:

If you are willing to learn by reading docs, then go for it. Gentoo was my first linux distro and generally my first system not made by M$ ;]

d2_racing · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 6:54 pm Post subject:

You will learn a lot with Gentoo, and you will learn a lot how Linux works.

kite14 · Apprentice Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 216 Location: Italy

My personal reasons for choosing Gentoo:

Some drawbacks:

timeBandit · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:52 pm Post subject:

RedSquirrel · Guru Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 336

Silabus,

Given your background, I would recommend giving Gentoo a try. As mentioned above, just be sure to read the docs carefully. The installation is not as easy as some other distributions, but you will learn something about Gentoo while you're installing it.

When you get to the step in the Gentoo Handbook that deals with installing a stage tarball, you might want to try one of the weekly stage tarballs which are located under the /experimental directory on the mirrors. They are more up to date. There are weekly Minimal CD images under that directory as well. See the following news item:

First sets of weekly stage3s and minimal CDs released

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm going to install Gentoo, then. Not immediately, though, I've got some reading up to do

kineticbeing · n00b Joined: 25 Dec 2008 Posts: 11

I suggest to try to use the http://www.funtoo.org stage3 tarballs, the stable version on the right side of the page.

They contain the stable system, basically the same as the weekly ones that are just coming out, but they're less buggy (because they're less new) and they are ususally more recent than the weekly ones (they're build every couple days, as opposed to every week) and they're optimized for your specific processer (such as Pentuim 4, which is what I use) out of the box, rather than just for x86. That saves you the time of doing emerge -e to get the base system optimized to your processor.

d2_racing · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:28 am Post subject:

Also, use the SystemRescueCD to install your Gentoo box.

Good luck !

Tadeas · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:40 am Post subject:

However I'd suggest you to install Gentoo on a spare partition first and keep some other system working too, at least for some time.

BTW I installed Gentoo from my Debian system I have here using chroot and I found it much more comfortable than installing it right from a CD. I has one great advantage: you can keep the Gentoo handbook open in one window in X and do all the work via terminal. However it requires some little knowledge about the installation process...

RedSquirrel · Guru Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 336

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

duckz · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 158

try browsing Gentoo wiki first then if your do have the patience to read it, Go for it, otherwise stay with ubuntu/fedora.
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Clad in Sky · l33t Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 894 Location: Germany

Also, if you're having trouble building a working kernel, there's Pappy's Kernel Seeds that might help you.
_________________
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Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

Well, I"ve been reading the wiki. I'm about halfway through it and it doesn't seem that bad at all. Could be fun. Just a few questions that I'm not exactly sure of at this point.

I have an Asus M2N-SLI nForce 560 Socket AM2 mobo and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 and all my experience of installing hardware is with Windows. Do I have to install those drivers for Gentoo? Can I just use the installation CD that came with the hardware or are they Windows specific?

Also I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AM2 CPU and I downloaded the amd64 minimal install ISO but I don't want a 64 bit OS. Do I have to set an option at setup or will it outright ask me? So far I've only gotten to http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml?part=1&chap=5 in reading the wiki so if I'm being premature in asking, I apologize, I'm just trying to make sure I don't screw anything up.

I was also reading about installing a specific game for wine, and I need the truetype fonts found in msttcorefonts. Is that possible to get with Gentoo?

szczerb · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:46 pm Post subject:

Most drivers are in the kernel and graphics drivers are in portage. The windows drivers are no use here.

Why don't you want a 64 bit OS? If you really have a reason not to go 64bit then I'm not sure if the amd64 minimal will be ok. You might prefer using the system rescue cd instead. It's Gentoo based so you can use it just like the minimal, but it has X with gparted and firefox.

EDIT: When you install wine, download winetricks and install the fonts from there - I think ;]

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

Mostly for Wine and the few games that I'd wish to play on wine. Been reading that wine is incompatible with 64 bit Linux distributions.

szczerb · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:55 pm Post subject:

But, unless you choose the no-multilib profile, 32 bit applications work just fine on 64bit Gentoo ;] Even the damned 32bit proprietary flash player from adobe worked fine until they finally released the 64bit version. Sometimes I run stuff on wine and I don't have any bonus problems because of being 64 bit - just the standard ones

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

I see, thank you for your help. This is turning out to be a better and better idea as I learn about Gentoo. Too bad I can't actually install it for another month when I get back from my trip. Just trying to learn as much as possible so I'm as prepared as possible for when the time comes.

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

So on http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml?part=1&chap=6 under Choosing the Right Profile, do I want the pure 64 bit environment with no 32 bit applications or libraries?

d2_racing · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:55 pm Post subject:

Use the AMD64 profile, because if you go no-multilib you can have a lot of fun actually.

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

d2_racing · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:05 pm Post subject:

Use the AMD64 default profile....

Silabus · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 10

Okay, thanks. Sorry for asking so specifcally :oops:

I REALLY don't want to mess up the install.

d2_racing · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:10 pm Post subject:

No problem, it's the best way to don't mess up your first installation