Thoughts on gentoo after first few weeks

[treb0r]

Hey,

I've been using gentoo successfully for a few weeks now and thought I might share my thoughts.

I had previously used slackware for a couple of years, and really liked it, except for the lack of a proper package management system. Well, there is a package management system , and I even used to compile most of my own packages from source using checkinstall, but the lack of dependency checking drove me into temptation and a copy of swaret, which badly crashed my system.

Since deciding to make the switch, Portage has totally blown me away - both in terms of the comprehensive selection of software available, and the ability to tweak said software in ways unimaginable with binary distributions. I even managed to compile a totally kde integrated version of OOo in my first week.

My laptop has never felt so zingy and responsive - I have it set up with a comprehensive suite of tools and I can do everything I could ever need to do as a web developer.

On the negative side, if there is one, I'm a little surprised to see how long it takes for important releases like KDE 3.5.1 to make it into stable. I guess this is a function of the number of testers available.

I have considered using testing to get around this - how stable is testing on a normal day to day basis?

Thanks for a great OS, and keep up the good work.

Rob

[loki99]

First of all, welcome to the Gentoo community and good to have you with us Rob!

Truely portage does rock, even though there are a few things that can and will be improved.

There are some packages that take quite long to make it into portage stable, due to their complexity, but portage allows you to use testing packages while having the rest of your system still using stable.
(Take a look at chapter 3)

I usually check the forums before emerging a "~testing" package, to see whether others have had troubles with it. But there are a lot of people out there, running the whole of their systems on testing and claiming that most of the time all goes well.

[SneakyPete]

Hi Rob, I have been using Kde 3.5.1 for a while now with no problems. My system is running on "~amd64" and i have had very few problems. Only real problem i have had was with the newer baselayout, my adsl would not start at boot with it, but there is a fix for that out there. Now if i could get Xgl to start with kde i would be happy:) As you will find out the Gentoo forums are great, i am not much for posting, but have always found the answers to my questions here.

Pete

[Shadow Skill]

Welcome glad you like things here, words of advice Gentoo-portage.com and Gentoo-wiki along with the install guide is your best friend.
_________________
Ware wa mutekinari.
Wa ga kage waza ni kanau mono nashi.
Wa ga ichigeki wa mutekinari.

"First there was nothing, so the lord gave us light. There was still nothing, but at least you could see it."

[omp]

First of all, welcome.


And now to answer your question....

[kill[h]er]

i've been using gentoo since before my forum registration date to the left. in that time, i've almost always used "~x86" on servers, desktops, and laptops. i can't remember ever having an issue that was attributed to using ~x86.

[treb0r]

Thanks guys.

As soon as I can find a suitable compilation window I'm going to upgrade.

Rob