Is gentoo right for me?

tcm · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2004 Posts: 3

I hope this is the correct forum for my questions:

I want to install Linux on my zt3000 (Pentium-M 1.4G, 512M memory, ATI Radeon 9200), and I need to decide between Gentoo and Libranet (debian + some admin utilities). The things that are most important to me are:

- having a rock solid system, and
- knowing that when I want/need to install an upgrade, that the process is going work right the first time (I don't want to have to spend a lot of time resolving dependncy issues).

I don't need a high performance system and I'm not interested in wringing every last cycle out of the kernel.

Finally, I only have a dialup modem an don't know anyone who would be able to download install files and burn them onto a CD for me. I can't afford to be spending hours upon hours downloading upgrades. The issue of having to download source vs. binary for updates does worry me.

My questions:

1) Is there any reason why I would not want to start with a Stage 3 install? If you recommend a Stage 3 install, which Stage 3 would be best for me?

2) Is having to download update files via a 56k modem burdensome? How much time would be involved to update something like KDE or OpenOffice?

Thanks for any help you can provide,
Tom McG.

Earthwings · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 5:57 pm Post subject:

Being an old debian user, I can tell you Gentoo is much neater in solving dependencies. Using gentoo stable, you'll both have a solid and up-to-date system (debian's stable would be even more solid, but far away from up-to-date). Updating your system will be somehow painfull with both (every) distro having only a modem. Binary (debian) packages are smaller, but I wouldn't download a kde-update with both ones. There's also an unofficial project providing binary packages for gentoo, too.
Gentoo will be able to update only packages with security problems in the near future, so this could be a compromise.

tcm · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2004 Posts: 3

Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

thundersteele · Apprentice Joined: 30 Aug 2003 Posts: 219

well, I am using pentium4 flag on P M without problems. Nevertheless there are some people saying that this may cause problems because of the PM based on a P3 and perhaps not supporting some special commands.
As there is no real performance difference between p3 and p4 optimization, you will be safe using pentium 3 stages.

redhook · n00b Joined: 24 Jan 2005 Posts: 18

evhwg · n00b Joined: 22 Jan 2005 Posts: 4 Location: USA

are you serious?
i am waiting on my 1.2GHZ cpu to get in to install gentoo and KDE.

Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

hajk · n00b Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 47 Location: Amsterdam

Honestly, with only a 56K dial-up connection, you shouldn't (IMHO) be using Gentoo... Even assuming that you'll do a Stage 3 install from a package CD, updating Portage and downloading new packages will take forever.

You would be better off buying a set of CD's with Debian Sarge and only do security updates; or a recent version of SuSE (you can have my SuSE 9.1 Professional if you're ever in the neighbourhood...).
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