praise for gentoo from linux newbie

[Lightspeed]

Hello there! I just installed Gentoo last week and have been messing about with it and configuring things to my liking for the last couple of days.

I would certainly consider myself to be a "linux newbie". Though I'd say I am pretty knowledgable as far as Windows and PC hardware goes. In the past I have installed both Mandrake 8.1 and 9.0, but then soon uninstalled them again due to feeling Windows XP was still nicer for me. Overall I guess my only previous linux experience was around 6 hours in Mandrake. After my frustration with Mandrake I decided to try something very different and went for Gentoo. I can't describe how much more fulfilling it has been so far!

The problem with Mandrake for me was that it tries to cover up what is really going on under the surface of the OS and there is no motivation for the user to find out. Indeed, it seems very difficult for a newbie to find out how everything works in linux when using Mandrake. So I might as well have continued using XP which is at least familiar. On the other hand, with Gentoo, it forces the user to see and type all the commands being entered during the install process, when following the install guide, and immediately the learning process begins! It was indescribably more enjoyable watching first hand how the installation works. And the amount of stuff I've learnt about linux in this past week has been amazing. All thanks to this wonderful distribution

[idl]

I know what you mean about Mandrake kinda covering things up, I felt the same way when I used Mandrake. However we strike a little problem, from the point of view of a newbie would they prefer Mandrake for its ease of use but inability to make the user learn and eventualy getting them frustrated? or would they go for a distro like Gentoo where its very interactive and requires a lot of learning and understanding for a complete newbie.
The Gentoo route is obviously better - but most people just aint preprared to spend the time learning. I'm glad you made the transition over to Gentoo so early on and its proof of Gentoo advantages to the beginner.

Happy Gentooing!
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a.k.a port001
Found a bug? Please report it: Gentoo Bugzilla

[PT_LAmb]

That's too, my main motivation for using Gentoo. You get to know how Linux really is.

One of the things that you learn with gentoo, and rarely learn with other distributions, are the compilation problems. You get to feel much of the problems that a regular developer feels when trying to build a package. The difference with Gentoo is that not everytime the formula that is written within the ebuild file is correct. When that happens, you have to improve the formula (or recepy, has Stallman would say), and share it with everyone.

One other thing, is the community that has gathered around this distro. I have never felt so good helping, and getting helped by others, like here. I rarely ever hear(or read) a RTFM, because if you haven't yet noticed, the documentation isn't as comprehensive as one would like.

So let me, in the name of us all, welcome you to the community. I hope you like your experience with gentoo.

Ricardo Cordeiro
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SETI@Home - http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

[Sastraxi]

I was going to go LFS, but decided Gentoo was for me (you can still compile things on your own and set every little setting you want), because of it's package management and you didn't need a host linux distro to begin with. I was going to give up because my network refused to start, but lo and behold it was the APIC! =) So here I am.... I'm really not a Linux newbie, but I've found the more I get into it, the more I want to be a poweruser (first distro Mandrake, 2nd SuSE, 3rd Debian, 4th LFS, 5th and possibly last, Gentoo).