Convince me...

p0indext0r · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 1:16 am Post subject: Convince me...

Hey, I've snooping around this forum for some time now and I was wondering if any of you guy/gals can just give me a couple of nudges to make me fully agree to install gentoo.

I've been playing around with two distro's, ArchLinux and Slackware. Arch has some really good points and many bad points which seem to be becoming more and more annoying, I still really like it. Right now I'm using slackware with dropline gnome, it's great but slack doesn't really update smoothly... even with swaret which is really cool but still has it's quirks. Portage looks amazing from what I've been seeing and it looks like what I'm looking for.

The main thing I'm looking for is a distro which has well maintained packages (repositories/ebuilds/pkgbuilds, whatever) which are up to date and easily kept up to date, seemlessly. I don't really expect to find a bug free distro, because they all have their hiccups here and there. I love the slackware configurability and how everything is layed out, I love arch's speed but hate where packages are installed (most if not all are installed in the /opt directory... which is good and bad) which can be changed if I manually edit some PKGBUILDS. How is Gentoo layed out?

Anyway, thanks for bothering to read this, any input would be really great.

*NOTE* plz don't turn this into a flame, from what I've seen so far many Arch and Gentoo ppl don't get along... for some crazy reason, which is completly dumb because linux is about choice.

Thanks.
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andrewy · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 602

It sounds to me like Gentoo is exactly what you're looking for.
Portage is the best updating tool I've seen (and I've used pretty much everything), and it's just as fast as Arch, since everything's compiled from source.
It also generally installs stuff to /usr or /usr/local, instead of /opt.

Gandalf the White · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 2:25 am Post subject:

Given M. Sur · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 2:38 am Post subject:

I can't really add too much to what the others said, other than just give it a try. If you don't like it then switch to another. It's free afterall

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HydroSan · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 3:01 am Post subject:

If the installation puts you off, remember that the people on the forum including myself would be happy to answer any questions you have, no matter how 'noob'-ish. Once you get up and running, you don't really need to touch anything ever again aside from updating, which can be taken care of quite easily with 'emerge -U world'.
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andrewy · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 602

The installation is also suprisingly easy, I expected it to be much harder when I first installed Gentoo.

dalek · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 3:13 am Post subject:

I switched from Mandrake a good while back. I was going to install Gentoo and then Slackware. I never got around to installing Slackware. There is no need in my opinion. I had found perfection.

Since then, I type in emerge sync && emerge -u world about once a week when I go to bed and that takes care of updating.

The only problem I have had is during etc-update. Never let it update fstab, rc.conf, or group files. Fstab should be obvious, not sure about rc.conf, but it always wants to remove users from the wheel group and then you can not switch to root. Other than that little learning experience, it has been great.

I did have 'fun' installing. It took me a few times especially with the kernel. To me the install is the hardest part. Once you get past that, it's heaven.

Convinced yet?

Later

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placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

The install is a little odd the first time, but if you follow the install directions perfectly then it will be nothing. I myself made many mistakes doing what I thought I should do instead of what it said. Just stick to what it says and all will be good. If you make a mistake, it generally will help you learn more about Linux so it's not a bad thing.

Once it's up and going, updating and installing software is as easy as can be.

p0indext0r · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 3:44 am Post subject:

Thanks

for all the replies. I'll have to get a few things orgainzed first with backing up and all. Once I get a chance I'll install it.

Oh btw, the installation doesn't put me off at all, I'm not new to linux, just thought I'd ask these simple questions because I always love to hear ppl's opinions before I go forth and get an opinion of my own.

Thanks again for all the replies

. I hope I'll be able to call it home.
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placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

I hope to see you call it /home as well. lol

Dr Gonzo · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 5:36 am Post subject:

*sniff* I had one of these threads, too, when I first started..

Needless to say, I'm still here, and I have never had more fun with my computer. The people on this forum are great, too. Better than I ever could have hoped for.

I hope you enjoy it.
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andrewy · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 602

placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

I wasn't really hard as much as I didn't follow the manual correctly. lol

superjaded · l33t Joined: 05 Jul 2002 Posts: 802

placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

Or maybe I meant 127.0.0.1 or ~/. :wink:

p0indext0r · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 6:14 pm Post subject:

LOL you dorks

.

Anyway, I was wondering if there was a quick (small) installation guide that I could use instead of the handbook. Because I need something that I can print out and not have to use 100+ pages... does something like this exsist?

I have the older 1.4 install guide printed out, because awhile back I was going to use gentoo but never got around to it due to some projects I was working on at the time. Does this guide still work?

Thanks in advance. So far I'm very pleased with this forum, there are some pretty damn cool ppl here (ME

).
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superjaded · l33t Joined: 05 Jul 2002 Posts: 802

p0indext0r · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject:

OOOOOH! Thats perfect then, I'll just use lynx while installing.

Thanks.
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qsela · n00b Joined: 08 May 2004 Posts: 7 Location: Finland

Skittle · n00b Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 11

TanNewt · Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:46 am Post subject:

Yeah I tried linux after wanting to for a while and finally getting cable internet so I could easily download whats needed. Anyhow I dual boot with WinXP, I spend most of my time on Gentoo. Portage is a great, easy way of and installing and rocks for udpating also. Make sure when you start that you understand etc-update I've lost an fstab file that way.

As for the people who say the install is horrible they have obviously never done a Linux From Scratch install. It teaches you a ton but gets tedious. Gentoo is a happy medium. It gets you comfortable to the console with out banishing you to the console for eternity typing ./configure make over and over.

IvanHoe · l33t Joined: 05 Oct 2002 Posts: 658

Frodg · l33t Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 761

Yep - just install it and you will not find any reason to change ....
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wswartzendruber · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:54 pm Post subject:

I'm a n00b who had no idea how to work Debian of all things, and Gentoo was great!
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Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

I wouldn't actually say the install is horrible - it's quite interesting since I hadn't really used Linux before so I was learning as I went. You have to engage your brain which is actually quite pleasant, rather than the Windows one where you seem to spend the whole time clicking "next" and telling it what country you live in 18 times.

And with computer speeds now it's not all that painful - my desktop does bootstrap & emerge system in three or four hours, often overnight. If that's still too much there's stage 3, which works well too - I'd be interested to know how long the install would actually take if it was completely automated. I bet it wouldn't be as long as, say, Windows....