Complete Newbie

[pseudonym_anon]

I am interested in using Linux, a couple of my friends have said to me that Gentoo is very much diving in at the deep-end, and that the learning curve would be huge, but the documentation should help me through, and if I manage it, all my understanding would be strong. Has anyone got any thoughts or advice.

The PC I am willing to "play with" for this little experiment is currently a P3 Win98 with 18gb hard drive.

[elgato319]

If you have never used linux before i would not start with gentoo.
Sure you will learn alot about linux, but it can be very frustrating if things don't work out like planned. You might loose your intrest in linux.

My Advice:

Try something easy at first. Ubuntu is very easy to install and has a good documentation.
Try to use it for a week or two. Learn (and see) how the filesystem works. What is X? What is a Windowsmanager? How do i use a terminal? etc..

After that i would try another flavour of linux. the choice is yours.

If you still feel the urge to know what is going on inside on all of this. grab gentoo and try to install it. you will notice that it differs from other (standard) distributions. the documentation for gentoo is quite good, with it i'm sure you can install it on your first try.

Linux/Unix requires you to have some basic knowlege on how a computer works. often users have more problem on how to partition their harddrive than using the command to do so.

[pseudonym_anon]

Is there any documentation I can read, Gentoo or otherwise which will help me get to grips with Linux and how it is different from Windows?

[krisse]

We can do better than mere documentation to give you a taste of linux --- without losing your current windows installation: try a livecd! It doesn't install anything, but boots your computer off of the cd. Thus giving you an entire "linux" environment you can toy around with however much you like, and install it if you want; or just reboot without the cd in the drive to go back to the homely windows environment.

A golden oldie of livecd's would be knoppix; but you might want to give ubuntu and elive a shot as well. All three use different window managers by default (kde, gnome and e17, respectively).

Download; toast it; pop it in the tray; reboot, and you're in linuxland.

EDIT: you'll find a big list of livecd's at wikipedia. You can easily see their "pedigree"; which livecd's use different systems for packages and whatnot.

[malrost]

I'm a Gentoo n00b, but have experience with a few other distros.

First, try burning and use a LiveCD. Several distros have them, so try a few; Genoo, Ubuntu (you might want to use Xubuntu for your hardware), Fedora, Knoppix, etc. Using these will allow you to bypass the sometimes challenging installation and get right to using applications.

But I am going to disagree with elgato and suggest that you try installing Gentoo. Since it's a spare machine, why not just jump right in? It might actually just work for you. Your hardware, while a bit obsolete, doesn't sound likely to be exotic or in need of special, exceptional configuration. If the install doesn't work, you won't have broken anything, and better yet you will have already started to learn things that will apply to all other distros.

One caveat: while I'm all for trying different installations, I suggest that you don't try setting up a dual or multiboot system on your first try.

Whatever you do, it will be a big help to familiarize yourself with the terminal/shell; it's a must for Gentoo, helpful but not strictly really necessary for Ubuntu/Xubuntu. But you don't need to be a master, just some basics: how to see (ls) and move around in (cd) directories, and particularly how to open and edit a text file (many options here, an easy application nano, a more challenging application is vi). Also learn what root is, learn how to read man pages (man vi, for example) and why you should read man pages.

Some of the biggest challenges I've run into during installs have been when a certain piece of hardware required specific attention or tuning. Often simply identifying a configuration problem is difficult, but addressing it will often involve editing a text file in a shell.

[RedSquirrel]

If you decide to give Gentoo a try, I would suggest you avoid the graphical installer. Follow the manual method described in the handbook. This way, you will learn about Gentoo while you're installing it.

When you get to the section in the handbook where you download a stage3 tarball, I would suggest that you use either the latest stage3 tarball from the experimental directory (see this news item) or a stage3 tarball from the funtoo.org site. These tarballs were built recently and will save you some headaches.

[d2_racing]

I have one advice for your installation, boot with the SystemRescueCD, it has the most recent kernel, so you have a good chance to boot properly your box.

[NathanZachary]

Well if you do decide to start with Gentoo (as I did years ago), you might become frustrated and temporarily switch to something a little easier (which is completely okay). I switched and tried RHEL (which at the time was RedHat 7.1), then a whole bunch of others like Mint, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, and more. I think playing with a LiveCD might not be a bad idea.

However, Gentoo does have amazing documentation, and this incredible support community! If you want to try installing Gentoo and using it as your first distro, we'll be here to help out when you hit some bumps in the road.
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[minor_prophets]

I say go for it.

Seriously, if you want to get the most satisfaction, education and....well, lets just say she can be a cruel lover sometimes... Go for it!

The crowd here at Gentoo linux is top-notch and new user friendly. Documentation is great.

AND, you'll also get to see "Guru" and "Noob" alike finding themselves in situations where one feels like a noob all over again.


--Noob

[minor_prophets]

ditto Kalos with my experience.

Nothing quite did it once Gentoo ruined me. Distro-flav of month was completely blech. That's pretty much how I did it. Just dive in. Mind the warm spot, though.

[pappy_mcfae]

Put me into the go-for-it crowd as well. I think it's cool that there are some Gentoo'ers out there who have used nothing but Gentoo since day one. While I can't make that claim, I will say that Gentoo teaches you more about Linux than you might ever want to know...not that such a thing is bad. I know it really opened my eyes to what can be done with a computer.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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[yngwin]

One think Gentoo is known for is documentation. Have a look at this listing:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/list.xml
The most important ones are at the top: the FAQ and the Handbook.

Another source is the user generated and maintained wiki: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

I have some helpful blog posts with more info as well:
http://ben.liveforge.org/gentoo-documentation-sources
http://ben.liveforge.org/how-to-be-a-successful-gentoo-user
http://ben.liveforge.org/gentoo-features
http://ben.liveforge.org/get-better-help
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[minor_prophets]

to pappy_mcfae:

Ditto your comment. Growing with Gentoo forced me to discard the fixed pie paradigm, if you will. I never imagined I'd be framing questions to myself with the level of critical thinking and analysis Gentoo use seems to draw out of me, if that makes sense.

[pappy_mcfae]

Absolutely. I have my computers doing things to and with each other that I never envisioned...and things that would mostly be impossible to make happen under windoze, or really expensive. Gentoo has brought me to the point where I'm hacking source code and writing my own ebuilds and patches.

Had I stayed with Slackware, I might have eventually come to this place with my machines, but it would have taken a lot longer, and the result would be a suck-ass hint of what I have going presently. Either way, I'd have to compile to get what I want, so why waste time with a binary distro initially?

Gentoo has brought *my* inner geek out of hiding. I'm so glad it did!

Blessed be!
Pappy
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[Melorn1]

You may want to try the suggested liveCD's on a newer computer, some of them can be pretty demanding depending on the settings.

Don't worry it shouldn't install anything unless you tell it to.

[RedSquirrel]