Help Me Make The Call

theDude · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 4

I am a newbie to Linux (relatively). Of course, what does that mean these days? I can set up my hardware (nvidia drivers, yada yada). Networking is my strong point - I guess I'm not a programmer is what I'm saying.

All my Linux experience lies with Mandrake, a little with redhat. I'm feeling ready for a 'serious' distro. I am tired of user friendliness (although it does have it's attraction at time).

I need an honest answer - am I ready for gentoo or am I jumping into the deep end? How much is Gentoo going to do in the line of detecting and installing my hardware? Am I going to have to slave for days with every little this and that before I can use my computer again?

One of the computers I take care of is a notebook - should I stick to "friendlier" distros for that machine? I want to be able to use it's hotkeys, linmodem, etc.

Any advice would be appreciated, I don't want to overhaul my machine and regret it.

TheCoop · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2002 12:19 pm Post subject:

only you know when you are ready for gentoo, the thing to do would to try a test install on a spare hd, if you like it then go for it, if not then mandrake/redhat is for you

Gentoo wont do anything automatically, you will have to configure all your hardware by hand as well as your kernel, but then yoiu can get it exactly how you want it
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S_aIN_t · Guru Joined: 11 May 2002 Posts: 488 Location: Ottawa

the only way to find out is to try it. that being said you need sufficient time to get everything configured properly.

so, all the hardware that is supported by ohter linux distros could be configured in gentoo given enough time.

portage is an excellent system that will simplify alot of work for you.

give it a shot, if you like it use it .. if you dont.. there are plenty of other distros out there.. maybe one of them would be better suited toward your needs.

darktux · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2002 2:32 pm Post subject:

I'd say, read the Installation Documentation over and over again, if you think you understand everything, and can cope with it, then go ahead! Also read the Portage's documentation

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maw · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2002 3:14 pm Post subject:

User friendliness? What is that exactly? I'm not sure, but I do know that Gentoo is very me-friendly. I may not be a typical user (okay, so I'm not, I'm a programmer, a Computer Science student and I'll happily resort to using magic on my computer at times) but Gentoo likes me and I like it.

If you think you can cope with the installation, the rest is easier. Well, almost all of it anyway. Especially with these forums here :-)

And if it doesn't work out, all you've lost is some time... so why not try it?
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metalhedd · Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2002 11:42 pm Post subject:

Gentoo is very friendly if you're willing to read all the docs. it certainly won't hold your hand, but at the same time, it acts exactly how you expect it to. 90% of the time you can simply follow the install guide and the desktop guide letter for letter and you'll end up with a (mostly) working system... and as long as you've got your GUI of choice, and these forums, you should be able to resolve any remaining issues.

|the sys admin| · n00b Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 42 Location: Michigan

I'm new to all of this too. My only experience is Mandrake. I have a spare 4 gig hard drive that I install *nix to, and I find that Gentoo is quite nice.

On my system, it only takes 1.5 days to get the Main System installed. I start Friday after school, let it run at night (so I lose hours when I sleep becuase it finished 3 hours after I went to bed), and then by saturday night I have a functional system with X, accelerated NVIDIA Drivers, music, video, bad sound quality, and emacs, etc...

Point is, throw it on a second hard drive, and have fun. My friends, dad, and computer buds think I'm stupid for choosing Gentoo over Redhat...but I'm like that

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theDude · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 4

Well, thanks for all the advice. I guess I am going to go and read through all of the docs.

MacMasta · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:53 pm Post subject:

Go for it - you'll learn more than you ever thought possible.

And, interestingly enough, I've found that when I'm familiar with the hardware, I can get a gentoo system to talk to hardware as fast as I can a mandrake system or a redhat system. (Ok, that's not technically true - but when mdk / rh doesn't figure it out on the first try, you're in trouble).

And I can certainly outrun windows.

Gentoo is, in my mind, the One True Distro these days.
(And these forums are the best linux support I've found anywhere)

~Mac~

NorthGoingZax · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2002 Posts: 186

One of the attractive things about gentoo over and RPM system like RedHat or Mandrake is that the portage system makes it easy to install the software I'm looking for ( I don't have to search for web pages for downloads) and it handes all the dependancies. It also makes the software to fit my processor - no slumming on 386 builds for my Pentium 4 !

phong · Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 2:47 am Post subject:

Folks on the forums here will give you lots of good reasons to use Gentoo, so I won't duplicate their efforts. Instead I'll give you reasons you may want to choose something else:

1) It's a source based distro. One of the implications is that occasionally, you may have to debug a compile problem (the forums are immensely helpful for this). The other is that some things take a long time to compile, and you may be waiting a while during installation or an update. For example, on a slowish computer (say, 500Mhz or less) compiling KDE will take upwards of a day. Mozilla will take many hours. For some people (like me), neither of these is a problem, and they're outweighed by the advantages of compiling from source. For others, it's a deal breaker and they'll just infuriate themselves trying to use Gentoo.

2) Other than package management (portage), few things are automatic. You have to know which kernel options to compile in to support your hardware. You'll get plenty of rope to do anything with (including hang yourself), and none of the knots are pre-tied.

3) You'll want a fast network connection - cablemodem, DSL, etc. Installing/maintiaing Gentoo over a modem can be painful with the size of source files you need to download. Some people do it, but it's a less than ideal solution.

4) To run Gentoo adequately, you'll need to learn quite a bit more about Linux in general than you may want to (I don't know how much you want to learn - you may want to know it all or you might just want to use your computer and not have to worry about any of it). Different strokes for different folks.
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theDude · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 4

Thank you for the help, I must agree that this is certainly the most helpfull board I have encountered.

Here is why Gentoo is going to to have to wait for me:

Firstly: TIME. I don't have much at the moment and my machine works 24/7 so I'll have to wait until I have enough time to give it a bash. This isn't the biggest problem, because I could chuck it on a spare partition and hack at it in my _very limited_ spare time.

Secondly (and most importantly): Internet Acess. I live in South Africa where permanent solutions for connectivity are very expensive. I have to rely on a modem at home and at my office the connection is rather unreliable. This is where it ends (for now). A ports based system without a permanent connection will only cause pain and suffering for me.

So I haven't given up - but I shall have to wait a while longer. The big appeal to me is the learning curve. I'm hitting a cealing with distros that do it all for you and I want to take it further then that.

mooman · Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:21 pm Post subject:

theDude · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 4

A LUB where people have a sense of humour? What the? Where? shees....