A brand new gentoo user!

m42 · n00b Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 5

Hey all, I just finished reading a few posts on people giving up on gentoo here so I thought I would put in my two cents as someone who has just finished installing it for the first time.

I've been a windows user all my life, I know a fair amount about computers and am fairly quick to figure things out. I had this week off sick and the doctor told me to stay indoors, so I was browsing the net and started reading up about linux. After some research I found gentoo which I thought was amazing, a system that can be compiled from scratch for your specific computer! Plus the number of applications avaialbe for free was amazing. So I decided to ditch windows all together and install gentoo, I spent about a day reading up on how to install/configure/run it...however very little of it made sense until I actually did it

Since I like the idea of being cutting edge I decided to build an ~x86 system, plus I set it up on a combination of software raid 0 and 1 (which was suprisingly easier then I thought it would be).

After research I chose kde as my window manager and started compiling. After a full day of compiling I now have a full running gentoo system! I'm fairly proud of myself as most people thought it may be to hard for a first time linux user. All in all, the setup process was extremely simple, I used the software raid guide and the gentoo handbook, it explained everything in simple details which was perfect. The only glitch was I didn't edit my fstab properly, I had a little trouble figuring out how to access my raid 0 partitions on the livecd again, but I figured it out edited it, and booted into gentoo!

Now that its running, I am very impressed, its fast, I can completely customize the look, and I'm overwhelmed with the programs available. So I now official do not have windows on my pc! And the best part is, whenever I have a question, I can search here and find just about anything I need to know. So thanks to the gentoo developers and all those who do a great job writing the documentation! Now, if only nvidia would release drivers for the new xorg server!

Lastly, I did have one question, how should I go about system updates? Can I leave my system as is and just do upgrades I want, or will that cause trouble later on?

at240 · l33t Joined: 12 Aug 2005 Posts: 603 Location: UK

Congratulations on your successful installation, and welcome to Gentoo!

As a general rule, I'd say you should try to keep up to date. A lot of people sync their portage tree every day or so and apply updates whenever there's one available. (I wouldn't advise doing that unthinkingly for a production machine, though.) I think (and others may have different views) that it's better to keep upgrading in small increments than to have to make one huge update every few months---the latter is the scenario in which you might encounter some problems. It is also probably easier to receive support if you are up to date, since many other users will be working from a similar base.

BTW, you should subscribe to the gentoo-announce mailing list, so that you don't miss important news and GLSAs (these are security announcements).

Have fun!

loki99 · Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:40 am Post subject:

Cogratz m42 and welcome to Gentoo!

Seems like you will have lots of fun in the next couple of months. There are tons of things to learn and to discover in the world of FOSS (Free Open Source Software).

AFAIK, the new nvidia drivers are due in august/september and updating world should be done regulary. That way you don't have to reinstall your OS unless you screw up or your hd brakes. I usually do it every two weeks or so.

m42 · n00b Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 5

Allright, i guess I'll be updating often. I wouldn't want to have to do all this over again to often. While it wasn't to difficult it was very time consuming

And a screenshot of my gentoo http://members.shaw.ca/m42/snapshot1.png

tabanus · l33t Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 638 Location: UK

I'm sure you know the command emerge -u world to update, but there are a few packages that you need to look out for appearing in there. These are the main ones I keep an eye out for, and try to emerge separately:

gentoo-sources
kde
gcc

No doubt there are others too, but a simple emerge -u gcc for instance won't necessarily mean you'll actually be using the latest version.
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cmaccoy · n00b Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 13 Location: New England

Congradulations on install number 1. In total i think i'm up to number 14 with gentoo but i started out on an easier version of linux first. Of course i got really bored with it because i saut power and after a bit of research gentoo seemed like the perfect fit. If you ever need any assistance you can e-mail me at lilchris173@yahoo.com or go to my website in my signature to get more contact info. You've got a great community behind you and we'll always be here ^_^
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Lechium · Apprentice Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 244

Now quit Gentoo and leave for Ubuntu or Fedora or something... you know be like the rest of us =P
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cmaccoy · n00b Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 13 Location: New England

Fedora is far from where ubuntu and debian systems are.. Debian flavors are by far the best i've seen. I may be a noob to the forums but i'm not a noob to linux lol ^_^.
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Naib · Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:42 pm Post subject:

A brand new Gentoo user, yours for only $19.99
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Lechium · Apprentice Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 244

Old School · Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:46 pm Post subject:

Congrats. I would recommend that you check out the Documentation Tips and Tricks forum as well as the Unsupported Software forum for ideas. An "emerge wrapper" such as emwrap.sh is very handy.
Good luck and welcome.
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cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

no-one knows gentoo properly until thay have failed the installation a few times :p
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Icer · Guru Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 395 Location: @home

You dont need to update or sync every day! It puts stress on the servers. Instead look at GWN for announces of major updates like KDE for example. Also checkout the packages.gentoo.org for daily list of updated packages. That way you dont need to sync to know which packages you could upgrade. I'd say that the advice of updating in small increments is per se a sound one although I dont believe you benefit much if you update daily. It's just you who have to sit infront of pc every day and you do that without very little benefit while you could be doing something more useful instead. I'd suggest people should update weekly instead.

Oh and welcome to Gentoo!

Be sure to visit the Gentoo wiki. It has a lot of extra documentation which is often more up to date than the official documents. However I'd still recommend reading first the official docs and then the wiki docs if the official docs dont have the information you need.
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Old School · Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:01 pm Post subject:

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

orlfman · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 68

Welcome to the world of Linux and Gentoo

Enjoy your stay

If you need some step by steps help or ideas you should check out Gentoo-Wiki! http://www.gentoo-wiki.org/ Comes in handy a lot :p
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aidy · l33t Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 915

CONGRATS AND HAVE FUN!!!

You truly start to appreciate all this when you really get integrated into the open source community, maybe you should make some contributions to the programs you like, there's much to be done for everything. Eg if you can't program you can still write documentation or so.

CoffeeBuzz · Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:19 am Post subject:

Indeed welcome! Now all you need is some nice fancy eye candy for that kde desktop of yours...

I recommend XGL ... <_< ... >_> ...

As for updates, I use ~x86 at home and ~amd64 at work. At home its once a day, eix-sync -v (btw install eix!!! its the SECOND app I emerge in every installation, fastest portage tree search utility out there) and emerge -NDuva world (apply any New use flags, search Deep for dependancies, update everything , be verbose about it and ask me before installing/updating anything!)

At work, its emerge -uva world .. and I only pick the apps necessary and apply the "if its not broke, don't fix it" rule to keep a nice stable system.
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