is gentoo for me?

[jimi_hendrix]

hi

i am thinking of possibly installing gentoo on my machine

i have had previous experience with ubuntu but that is all

how is gentoo different from ubuntu and other linuxes

ive heard gentoo needs a set of "gentoo only" skills that i wont use with any other distro, is this true?

thank you

[platojones]

Well, as you may know (I hope you read the installation documentation before making your decision), Gentoo is a source based distro ( a few others are out there, but nothing like this)...so if it bothers you that you'll be compiling virtually everything...then it's not for you. Of course, you won't be compiling it, your machine and portage will. It has a very unique package system (actually, the idea seems to be related to FreeBSD ports), that is second to none, in my opinion. All the skills you need to learn are very well documented. Bottom line...if you can exactly follow instructions and know the the basic linux commands, you should have no big problems. Once you are past that, and are very conservative during your learning phase (i.e. stay away from unstable stuff until you've got things stable and learn the ropes a bit), it is a very easy distro to maintain...in fact, it's beautiful the way it works. And, it may be the most open and configurable linux there is, though once installed, automates most of the tedious, hard stuff away.

The 'Gentoo specific' skills are really linux specific skills that other distros try to hide from you...with the exception of portage, which is Gentoo specific and you should study up on a bit. Do not even think about trying to use the Graphical installer for Gentoo...you won't learn anything and it is broken anyway. Look around the forums and please read the docs before you make your decision. But if you do decide Gentoo is something you would like to try...there is no distro with better documentation, forums, IRC, or mail lists....just learn how to ask questions here, and you will get help. BTW, some people get the install right the first time and many have to make 2 or 3 tries before the get it and are successful....so perserverence is also very helpful.

[jimi_hendrix]

[desultory]

Easy.

[platojones]

Well, I was a FreeBSD user before I discovered Gentoo...so the idea appealed to me from the beginning.

As far as how difficult the non-GUI installer is...there really isn't a choice. The GUI installer is pretty bad. It's broken, in many ways, and will often lead to a failed install.

Honestly, I think it depends on how much prior exposure you've had to Unix based systems before. Someone coming from a Windows-only (or Ubuntu only) point and click world, may struggle with it, though many of those folks have been successful. Those with some prior linux background will find it much easier. But you can judge for yourself...have a look at the installation instructions, and see if this looks like something you could understand enough to follow. If you are fairly new to linux, then it will take a bit more effort. A lot will depend on how much you like the Gentoo concept and want to see it through. If you are comfortable with the linux basics...and can follow these excellent intructions...not taking any shortcuts...it's a piece of cake:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml

Of course if you are linux expert, it's just all fun. Most here weren't, though, when they installed it the first time.

[jimi_hendrix]

[ekz]

btw, http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

Saludos!
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[steveL]

[jimi_hendrix]

taken that test many times...

[d2_racing]

My result : Gentoo and Slackware

[steveL]

[d2_racing]

I don't know

I wish that my result was Gentoo and FreeBSD at least

[srunni]

[bitpicker]

I came to Gentoo in early 2006; before that, I had Suse 9.1, but as I was trying to keep up with the development of Inkscape, which was pretty quick back then, I found myself forced to compile quite a substantial number of things by hand as there were no packages for 9.1 anymore. In the end my system was no longer compatible to Suse 9.1 packages...

So when my harddisk died on me I took the plunge and installed Gentoo. Took a couple of days, but worked the first time around. And that system is still in use. Now, I still have Ubuntu on my notebook and suggest it to anyone who wants a Linux system which just works, but for my main system I prefer Gentoo, as I feel too constrained by normal desktop distributions. I get the impression (which might be wrong) that it is easy to break any distro given you fiddle a lot with it, but Gentoo is the only distribution which you can repair easily, too.

Robin

[d2_racing]

[energyman76b]

[energyman76b]

[javeree]

Basically, I've gone the a similar route route:

I started out as a windows user with Mandrake, but was too much of a newbie to understand how I could change any of its behaviour apart from the thing KDE let me change (desktop background). I looked around to several 'simpler' alternatives (Vector Linux, College Linux, ...), but then tried Slackware loved it. Slackware again gave me the feeling of control I had in my DOS days: knowing exactly what is on your system and why. No need for fancy installers: I can say 'yes' to a question asked on screen just as well as I can press a graphical button.
I used it for a while, compiling programs when needed, but soon felt the need for a package manager to keep track of my installs, and especially to ged rid of dependency hell. This is when I discovered Gentoo (2004), and I've never left it since.

It took me days to install on a Pentium II following the handbook, but it all worked on the first try ! All I had to do was to follow each step from the handbook exactly (trying to understand what I was doing in the first place). But Oh the feeling of control I've had since then !

Gentoo deviates from the Slackware philosophy to follow upstream exactly, but not too much. Mostly it sets its own location for thge programs executable and config files, but this makes it all the more logical. In Slackware I had to guess where to find configurations depending on what upstream liked most, now I know where to look for things: all configuration is in /etc, all starutp related things are in /etc/{init,conf}.d/
Portage completely eliminates dependency hell, and gives you the ability to install just what you want.
Thanks to the fantastic forum, almost any question is answered

The only thing I would still whish for is a 'fast install' method. Basically I am dreaming of a pre-built binary distribution, with most settings already prepared for a sane 'standard' x86 desktop, e.g. kde, oOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, ... just like most binary distro, but comming with the complete gentoo background and portage (or with portage rsyncing after startup), so that I could start using a PC in a matter of hours just like what a binary distro allows you (or Windows for that matter), but that I can start to recompile later (e.g. at night) in the background with my own custom architecture, cflags and use flags.

That would really combine the power of gentoo with the fast installation times from other distros. Lets call it kugentoo

[srunni]

How hard is it to do manual package management in Slackware?
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[steveL]

Thanks for the explanation energyman; sounds a lot like Gentoo tbh; I like mc a lot for server admin. Though the dependency hell javeree mentions doesn't sound fun, and I love portage (combined with update) for keeping my system in shape. As I've said, a bug on Gentoo isn't the same as a bug on a binary distro; 90% of problems are issues to do with new packages building and compiling okay, but in the meantime the previous version usually works fine. Regardless of how long a major new desktop environment release takes to get into the stable tree, the rest of the tree is pretty much at state of the art imo. Anyone who's interested enough can unmask a package, use an overlay or even live ebuilds, and there are IRC channels for practically everything you can run.

Not knocking slackware, but it'd take a hell of a lot to get me to switch to another distro. I've been using mandriva on desktop recently only because my old desktop crapped out and I was trying other distros to get the new one installed quickly. I admit it, I wanted a desktop setup for me without any grief ;) mandriva is nice though, it was what I used to use before Gentoo. What I'd really love is a port of drakconf to Gentoo, but I don't know perl well enough (and I don't have time and headspace to get into yet another language atm; in freetime I'm getting my head fully round make atm, like I did with bash for so long. It's a lot easier now I know *nix cli really well; #bash rock although they have a vastly different mindset to Gentoo users in terms of being friendly.;)
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[energyman76b]

[srunni]

[energyman76b]

[NathanZachary]

[kaldek]