Why do you use Gentoo

[duane]

I put arch on most of my machines almost a year ago, and it worked fine. Updating was fast, and if I wanted to try something new, it didn't take long to download. I particularly like the archiso package for making livecds.

Then I made the mistake of installing a gentoo chroot for a project. Now I'm putting gentoo back on everything again. It's obviously an addiction. :p

[spork_kitty]

It puts me in the driver's seat. I have a toolchain by default. Patches, ebuilds, it's all text files. The tooling for building a distro is pretty good. Packages tend to be good about providing USE flags.

Most importantly, I can fork at will or maintain an overlay, if Gentoo goes stupid, and I won't be left wondering where to go. I can carry on where Gentoo left off.

Few distros do that as well as Gentoo.

[mouacyk]

Considering the many cycles of CPU vulnerabilities, where executing malicious code can compromise data and the system, why don't more people use Gentoo?
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OCed24/7: 9900K5.0GHz//16GB4000MHzC16//1080Ti2.10GHz
OCed24/7: 1680v24.5GHz//32GB2333MHzC10//750Ti[GHz

[cornplayz256]

gentoo is very customizable for me and lets me have freedom to do whatever i want with the packages i install. it's also very nice for development and gaming.

[plp]

Because coming from NetBSD as my primary OS for 10 years.
I was tired of having to use Linux emulation to run certain applications and I didn’t want to learn how to use systemd. So 4 years ago I gave Slackware a spin stuck with it until recently.

I love the documentation, freedom of compiling locally instead of grabbing binaries, and the level control I have over the system.

I‘ve found the perfect OS for me.

[g047]

IDK, i tried most common distros, but Gentoo is the one I stick with. The easiness by which you can apply patches is super sweet, ebuilds are pretty easy to write too. The killer feature for me is having a stable system that still can use unstable packages without too much of a hassle.

But honestly idk, i just really like it as a system (except when there is a python upgrade lmao)

[spica]

afaik if an application (via ebuild installed) asks for root password, and this is unavoidable, then such application is scheduled for eviction from portage. this is good policy I think.

[NichtDerHans]

I really appreciate the hassle-free, wonderfully fluffy puffy Python updates.
























I installed it because I always thought Gentoo was cool, but never dared to. Then I realised that it works quite well and is stable. I now like Gentoo because of the configuration options, because I can switch things on and off via the USE flags. It is kept very simple.

EDIT: Aaaaaand of course, the community is very friendly. I was with Arch before and hated the forum, the chat and the whole toxic elite atmosphere.

[Taigo]

[FilthyPitDog]

I use Gentoo for the customizability, USE Flags and package slotting are key for me. Also the community is amazing!
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Gentoo is a way of life...

[rzdndr]

Hello All,

• Wanted a source based distro.
  
• Suits my needs. I am developing software.
  
• Community is very nice
  

Regards

[4man]

I just have too much time on my hands.
Also,

[NeglectedRudderPug]

It just works(tm).

It offers a very high level of convenience in terms of setup, allowing me to have it exactly as I want it and it never breaks since it is damn near unbreakable. (Seriously, I've done several things that should break it, but it just bounces back to life every time with just a few tweaks.)

Been using it as my daily for over a year now, honestly I just love this thing. Kind of wish I had switched many years ago, instead of putting up with all those other distros quirks, that with gentoo I can just change now.

Gentoo is my home now.

[noobmartin]

I've used Gentoo on and off since ~2005 or 2006.
Back in the day I used it to gain superior gaming performance in World of Warcraft compared to my friends.

Nowadays, I use it in order to have full control over the system - I can basically do whatever I want and the "distribution" won't be in my way.

If I break it, I can fix it...

[Zucca]

[ChrisJumper]

In some point of time, we used computers and open source to have some kind of privacy. Like your own first steps and a playground to grow, or try to build new software without neural Network Support. With your own (community) brain and knowledge. To be sure to have no exploieds or virus gain by a personalised nudge insecurity bod - try to change you.

[papu]

the USE thing!
the DOC thing!
the FORUM thing!
the OPENRC thing!
the ~amd64 stuff!
the feeling of being a pro!


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~amd64 & openrc --cpu 7700 --ram 2x16GB --gpu RX 6600

[CooSee]

because Gentoo is Love to the Craft


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" Die Realität ist eine Illusion, die durch Mangel an ehrlicher Kommunikation entsteht "
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" Der Mensch ist von Natur aus neugierig, was am Ende übrig bleibt ist die Gier "

[Wewfus]

Back in the day I used Gentoo because it actually allowed me to eek out good performance gains on my aging hardware. I had the same workstation from about 1998-2006 or so. It was pretty disheartening watching performance plummet over those 5-8 years in most all major OSs at the time. About the time Windows 2000 was coming out I found a Mandrake box in my local computer store and never looked back. I ran it for a year or so until I finally got more bandwidth at home (going from 14k to 33-56k was a huge upgrade at the time). Which made choosing another distro possible for the first time. I played around with Debian for a few months but then was advised to try out Gentoo. Grabbing just the source code I needed took less bandwidth than downloading binaries. USE flags allowed me to keep my single core CPU viable in an age where dual-core was starting to become expected. I fell in love with the *BSD inspired package manager.

I only moved away from it due to requirements at work where our choices of OS were extremely limited due to contract requirements. Thankfully, we were mostly a FreeBSD shop so I could continue using ports. Although we were also stuck with Windows for a lot of other things we did.

I'm back because I love the ports-inspired system so much along with the USE flags. It allows me to build whatever I want. Ideally, I'm hopefully eventually going to move on to using something like Guix full time. I tried to build a day-to-day system for the things I do with it. But it isn't really there yet. I'm in love with LISP now so I'll probably keep working at it. But for now Gentoo lets me build a working system that I can hopefully emulate in Guix at some point in the future. I live in emacs so using LISP to configure my system is no-brainier. I love the fact that it's reproducible with just one config file. But it doesn't have something like USE flags yet which are just so convenient and the /gnu/store method of installing software doesn't play nice with everything yet. I think in another 5-10 years it might settle down and become stable enough for day-to-day use for me.

The main advantage of Gentoo has always been the community around it. The biggest set back this place ever had was the loss of the original wiki imo.

[xineg]

I have been using Gentoo solidly without breaks for well over 20 years at this point and even if I didn't like it (I love it) I am so familiar with Gentoo that using anything else would just make everything that much more difficult. Everything with Gentoo is easier and more configurable than any other set of tools all from the get go, let alone because I've been using it for so long. Gentoo comes along with Neddy Seagoon (God bless him) and that man makes AI systems look bad not to mention Gentoo attracts the right sort of people for it's developers. Then there's the community which also has the best cross section of users there is regarding the breadth and skill level! There is nothing on all the internet like the body of people and software tools like the evolution that is Gentoo.