Why do you use Gentoo

[mijenix]

because:

• awesome community
  
• customiziation (USE features)
  
• works as expected
  
• package dependencies
  
• control in general
  

[Maxxx]

Because i want to learn very well linux system and with Gentoo i'm learning it very well... moreover Gentoo is very suitable and fast in my old computer from 2006 (i installed it in a removable disk of 2004 because my internal HD is damaged)... and the other reasons:

- very friendly community that helps you
- operating system very stable
- configuration capabilities of system
- personal satisfaction in knowing use

It fascinate me and I would like in the future to contribute to its development, although I know it will be almost impossible

[NeddySeagoon]

Maxxx,

[khayyam]

[Maxxx]

Hi Neddy!!!!! Glad to hear you

Thanks for your consideration... I already knew that i can contributing in other things rather than writing or develop ebuilds, but for now i'm not able to respond to most questions of forum. I always look at them.
Now i'm reading a book which talks about Linux in general: - kernel space, user space, system call, daemon, bash, network, etc... now i'm at the point in which talk about Bash shell and its commands.
This arguments aren't about writing programs, although I would love to learn this but i haven't more time for do it.
For now I set myself to learn well linux work, then will see... a step at a time.
I just hope to always have this curiosity and this desire.

Hi

[Maxxx]

however with my gentoo I have avoided buying a new pc, I just bought a new monitor 22 inches and it work at 1920 x 1080 resolution and i'm very happy

[mrbassie]

[minsoehan]

I use Gentoo because of
- Profile
- USE Flags
- OpenRC (I feel Gentoo is more reliable because it has its own init system, OpenRC than the others with non-Systemd without their own init system)
- Stability
- Performance
and of course
- Satisfaction
- Customization

[kazdva]

I have moved to Gentoo last week and I am extremely satisfied from it.

One of my main motivations toward it was to... "finally get Gentoo!" About 10 years ago I got my hands on Linux for a first time. I was playing around with Slackware, Fedora Core, SuSE and others, trying to find the one for me. I heard about this distro that allows maximal configuration of the system. I was very curious about it and I decided give it a try. Since I was a Linux beginner that time, things didn't go very well. Stage 3 install wasn't in my plans at all as I had no Internet connection at home to access the handbook, so I went with CD version. I got it setup but I ran into several issues with hardware and compilation was taking forever (despite my good-for-those-times 1.8GHz Celeron CPU). Ultimately I ended on Fedora Core (and then Fedora) for a few years until I switched to Mint.

During that time, Gentoo was coming back to my mind from time to time. I think I tried to setup it a few times thorough the years but hardware issues were always killing all my motivation. When I finally got Internet access at home I read more about it, learned that it is a system for advanced Linux users and I said to myself that with my actual skills Gentoo is not for me.

Over the years I was using Linux on my personal computer and I was getting more and more experience. I actually turned into Linux-lover and even my wife ended up with Mint on her laptop (she loves it!). Through the last 3 years I started to help and then to manage on my own a bunch of servers at my company, so I quickly gained more deeper knowledge about Linux (as well as FreeBSD). Some time ago Gentoo came back to my mind again. With my actual skill-set I have decided that I must give it a try. At first I was thinking about setting it up on a VM, but over time I noticed that I never can find time for it... so a week ago on Saturday totally spontaneously I decided to setup Gentoo on my laptop that I use for work. I bought a new HDD, connected it to my laptop through SATA-USB cable, and I began setup using stage 3 tarball from my Mint

I thought that getting Gentoo setup is going to be a big challenge, but... well, it turned out everything went pretty easily. While I ran into many problems during system configuration there was nothing that would not be described in the Gentoo handbook or the wiki. Getting my laptop production-ready actually took two days without a sleep, but it was an awesome journey through the system and it was totally worth it

The answer to "why are you using Gentoo" question is... because I love it! Maybe it's way too premature to stay this after just a week relationship, but this is really what I emotionally feel about this OS.

The things that put me in love are:
- ability to learn so many new things about the way Linux works. getting my computer production-ready already taught me enormous amount of knowledge
- ability to configure everything exactly the way I want, not the way a distribution packager wanted to
- USE flags! The ability to get software compiled without unnecessary elements is really great. During setup I got a little too obsessive and started "equery uses" on a bunch of packages I was going to install
- performance. getting things configured and compiled the way I want is really stunning. my gentoo boots in 12 seconds and I still believe it could get faster if I would configure kernel with more focus.
- portage. wow, I was really stunned when I learned and used it. and the amount of packages available as well as their recent versions is amazing.
- documentation. The Handbook is beautifully and clearly written. Soon I discovered Wiki pages and amounts of information found was simply crazy.I found answers to all my questions there.
- community. I have found Gentoo has very lively and nice community. I have just created my account to become a part of it

There will be certainly more and more things that could be added to that list as I will discover Gentoo more. Those things are things that I experienced so far during my one-week adventure.

[Tony0945]

[NeddySeagoon]

AdamScheller,

Welcome back. We knew you would come one day :)

All that keep us going is the thought of just one more emerge.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Longcast]

I've recently gone full Gentoo with an old work laptop and even more recently with my desktop. Before I switched I was a fan of Debian because of the plug-and-play factor and the niceness of apt, but the 'choices' appeal of Gentoo really motivated me to learn the ins and outs. I learned a lot about how to use a linux system and a CLI from installing and troubleshooting, and now I think I've found home.
Why did you decide to go Gentoo? Do you use a mixture of distros? I know that 'choices' is the obvious answer, but what was the real impetus behind opening the handbook for the very first time?
_________________
Body by Nautilus, Brain by Mattel.

[John R. Graham]

Merged above post. @Longcast, welcome to Gentoo!

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[leifbk]

[bghoons]

Why do I use Gentoo? That is like asking "Why do you use a hand-painted, kiln-fired purplish ceramic bowl that you made yourself which could break instead of a generic durable plastic one straight from the factory?"

For me, Gentoo is that hand-made bowl. No, I did not make the kiln, or tools like sculpting knives, but I used those tools to make what I wanted. Gentoo is the only OS I have ever used that gives me a feeling of satisfaction that "I made this, my own personal version."

I suppose I could use the default Windows, or other Linux versions, and I have before: Fedora, OpenSuse, CentOS, Mandrake (showing my age here); Red Hat, Debian, Mint (Ireland!) and maybe some others. I could also use a BSD (I do use OpenBSD for one computer) or join the 'Cult of Steve' and use an Apple/Mac: all of them are capable of meeting my computing needs for the things I use a computer for, so It basically comes down to taste, what I enjoy and like the best.

If I ran a server farm, or a web server facing the hostile internet, my computing needs would require more than just taste and personal preference to evaluate the best option, but since all I basically use a computer for is to run my mouth on forums like this one, check email, do online banking & shopping, etc., pretty much any OS will accomplish this. Some may want to argue vehemently which is the best OS or version of Linux to do these ordinary things but that battle is not for me and not a hill I will die upon because it is not important to get into micro-calculus computations to declare victory concerning the best OS to use.

As someone mentioned earlier, once trying Gentoo I felt at home. It is one of those things that when you encounter it, you say "Yes, this is me, this is what I want."

Many people tried Gentoo and they made it quite clear in numerous whining screeds that they HATE it, howling and moaning about USE flags and configuration files and compile times and so forth and so on. Gentoo was not to their taste so they went to something more their style like Ubuntu, which appears to be the most painless version of Linux to use, as painless as Windows: press the button and the OS holds your hand and "helps" you and asks you questions to make your computing experience a pampered, warm & fuzzy thing to do with no need to worry your sweet little brain over CPU architecture or file system type: Mommy will do all that for you.

And that is fine! Most people seem to want that, to use a computer without having to mess under the hood with the Operating System.

I enjoy using Gentoo, especially because it is a rolling release OS so I am always as up to date as I want to be. Unless I do something boneheaded (usually from lack of experience) I rarely have to reinstall. Even compiling the kernel which was my biggest source of bitching about Gentoo, I have now learned to upgrade the kernel about as easily as changing my underwear. It takes some time but not that much really, and I actually enjoy doing this manual stuff. Again, if I had a server farm of several thousand computers, I probably would not be using Gentoo unless I had some serious automation going on.

So that's it, really. I use Gentoo out of personal preference. I also admit that I have a sense of elitism, snickering that I can use Gentoo and have been doing so for years whereas many others gave up and went away crying butthurt because it was too hard, kind of like reading the novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce which is a slog to read but having read it, there is a perverse sense of pride that you were able to do what most people just could not do.

I would say Gentoo is the Ulysses of the computing world: most people have not used it, and those that tried gave up in disgust, but there are a certain few who celebrate it like on Bloomsday.

[Muso]

[leifbk]

[atari800]

Hi people.
This is my first post here and the topic seems to fit for a hello post.

I've been a debian user since ~2004 and with debian moving to systemd needed to look for an alternative. Since I've always been using pretty much outdated hardware, one of my goals as a debian user was to have a lightweight system for everyday user/lamerish needs, i.e. browsing, office, email, music. I've known gentoo back then but never bothered to understand how exactly it worked, I just knew that "everything's compiled from source".

Now I've been using gentoo for some ~5 years iirc. The machine that I type on right now is actually my first gentoo installation (others followed on different machines) and apart from some emerge conflicts (which turned out more or less educational) everything is up and running rock stable ever since.
I wanted to avoid systemd not necessarily from a technical or political perspective, but more because I really didn't want to re-learn stuff that I had slowly figured out with SysV over years .
Now that I've come to learn about openrc, portage and USE, I feel perfectly at home on my gentoo boxes. Actually, as I've been working somewhat more on my computer the last couple of months, I start feeling so good about gentoo and openrc that I wish I could contribute. For selfish reasons, of course. I pray that gentoo will be around for decades to come and I am really, deeply thankful for having the possibility to work with a system that can be configured to run smoothly on my ancient laptops and boxes. And of course, on a biased and onfounded opinion I'd like to stay away from poetteringware as long as possible.

So, my initial reasons:
- no systemd
- lightweight configuration possible

meanwhile:
- coherent system thanks to global use flags
- came to find that portage is a wonderful package manager
- feel that my configuration over time evolves more and more into exactly what I want. Kind of "made myself a(t) home" more than ever. The more stuff I tweak to my liking, the more "personally bonded" to the system I become .
[edit] - another one: getting "in conctact" with the actual software sources. Gave me an insight into how many people out there are coding on small, medium and large projects in different constellations from "corporation" style mozilla foundation to guys like the moc (music on console) dev doing stuff for fun at home. I didn't have that sense for the FOSS ecosystem when I was using debian. It felt more like "that's all debian" to me. Made me appreciate the effort of those people and makes me happy to see how many good folks are around all over the world.

Cheers to everyone here and massive thanks to everyone devoting time and energy to gentoo. I feel the need to say that I highly appreciate it.

Now that I've registered, I guess I'll be posting some questions, soon.

[atari800]

[pun_guin]

[Ant P.]

It's 2019 so I'll bring up another reason: Gentoo is becoming the more energy-efficient option by an order of magnitude.

How often do you do an emerge -u @world? About once a week sounds right.

Now consider that every time you have to navigate a web browser to a webapp, or open webapps disguised as desktop programs… it fires up a javascript compiler! And it does that for every single page view. And then that usually churns through *megabytes* of minified code — not to mention the process of generating that compressed form usually involves hundreds of megabytes of javascript in itself. $Deity have mercy on you and your CPU fan if you don't use an ad blocker.

[Proinsias]

I'd moved my main desktop machine to Calculate linux over the summer as I was on mobile internet and it was becoming painful to keep Gentoo up to date. Since moving the machine back to Gentoo about 4 months ago things have been much smoother. I went back to keeping things default where reasonable, running a mostly stable system and sometimes spliting up emerges, updating @system first and then @world later.

I may return to ~amd64 at some point but the pace of change on stable is nice. Running with emerge -qv makes portage much nicer to keep an eye on too.

The community is wonderful here and makes a big difference. There seems to be a much better atmosphere for helping those with strange setups and odd ways of doing things than I've seen in other places.

I got my first linux install which made me happy as an all round desktop with Arch around 2012 as it switched to systemd but there was breakage, the community had some very sharp edges and I ended up compiling a fair amount of stuff from source.

* The main repos have most of what I want.

* Portage is awesome, was delighted to find I could just drop patches into a folder and it would apply them.

* OpenRC suits me better than systemd or runit at the moment, very glad Alpine are using it too for a binary option.
.
* The forums are pretty relaxed and very helpful.

* The £300 PC I built in 2013 when I got annoyed with Apple and sold my iMac still makes me smile.

* march=native seems like an easy switch to flick for a system tailored to my wee chip.

[IDF31]

- No Systemd
- Base installation is truly a base instalation, no uneeded preinstalled software, if I need a program I just install it.
- Customisation
- USE Flags
- Every installed package works as expected, thanks to USE flags
- The community
- Source-based > Binary-based
_________________
Install Gentoo!

[caillou]

*control
*wanting to have a more hands on approach so I can learn the system better
*openrc
*rolling
*portage is amazing
I'm kinda new, I installed gentoo a few months back and while it was a bit overwhelming at start i'm having a great time!

[ChrisJumper]

I love Gentoo because it did not hide the complexity. Yes i did not have the time to code or read every line before compilation. But with Gentoo you will get the impression to disassembly the whole machine if something is broken or behave unexpected.

That's what i love it. Its like i car you disassembly fully and rebuild Everything. This is a great feeling.

At Computer Science there is more. And yes its just a feeling you never made a compiler or know how or why to write a Kernel or some build chain or booster library.

But that is not the point. The Point is you could do this if you want to throw much time and interest on that kind. And that's why Gentoo is so awesome.