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Is the Gentoo population aging or getting younger?
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steveL
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:03 am    Post subject: Re: Is the Gentoo population aging or getting younger? Reply with quote

TheLexx wrote:
It is in interesting question to ask, "Is the population of Gentoo users aging, getting younger or staying about the same?"..
Gentoo users get upclose and personal with the code like choosing kernel options and many other details. This is in stark contrast to most modern plug-n-play-login-to-facebook-check-4squares users of today. Because of this, it is easy to imagine that all Gentoo users are Gen-X'ers that bought there first modem just after watching War games and Tron in the theater. If people like me are the only ones using Gentoo then that could lead to problems.

Ironic, isn't it? We used to get youngsters attracted to the idea of configuring and optimising their installs. Now the trend has moved on, to shiny with lots of widgets that don't add anything functional, but do something with your hot new CPU, and make you feel like your SSD was an essential purchase.
Quote:
I would not suspect that Gentoo would be the first distro that Millennials would try, but I could imagine someone tiring of the offers from Microsoft and Apple deciding to try Linux. After getting hooked on the power/control of Linux migrating from an easy to use distro to an advanced distro such as Gentoo.
..
I think I should start a poll, but I don't know what the question would be.

As others have said, simple bracketing of ages would be enough. So here you go
Quote:
Well, maybe I'm rambling a bit. Bottom line, are there any on the next generation users interested in Gentoo?

Sure there are. The more relevant question to my mind, is whether Gentoo still attracts new developers.

It does, and most of them are young. Most of them also have a lot of respect for the user community, since they came up through it, which is a refreshing change to a few years ago.

Simply put all the reasons we love Gentoo, also make it an incredibly useful platform to develop on. For a programmer, coming to Gentoo is like diving into the Free software world for the first time, only this time you're getting code for everything, not just loads of binary apps that kludge your machine with dependency-hell.
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Section_8
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I certainly qualify as old.

My first programming course in Fortran, on a Burroughs B6700, using punch cards. My first real assembler hacking was Z-80 assembler on a TRS-80.
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aCOSwt
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

John R. Graham wrote:
Does Hollerith and EBCDIC get me into old fart territory? :P

No, no! That just makes you a pop art talent scout from gentoo
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Navar
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nix213 wrote:
I started BBS'ing around 1993/94, back in the days of the 386, MS-DOS 4.01, thedraw, telix, and the 2400 baud modem. Anyone else remember the zmodem download protocol? Or Thunderbyte AV?


Yeah those are memories. I ran one of the handful of local BBSes back in the late 80s. Summer job for helping pay for the 2nd phone line. :lol: It was difficult enough negotiating with parents to even allow another line. Even more extreme, mine was the only one Amiga based (other Amiga using people could actually draw limited graphics with animation). Still have a 'discounted' for SysOps not for re-sale US Robotics Courier HST 14.4K/16.8K modem in storage. Still cost a small fortune (for a teenager) at the time. :roll:
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

John R. Graham wrote:
Does Hollerith and EBCDIC get me into old fart territory? :P

Thankfully I think I'm clueless on Hollerith since you put it in that category. I didn't escape 'the way' of 360 assembly and EBCDIC. Teaching myself C on micros as a teenager in the 80s and becoming a fan of Unix, you can imagine my horror at the big iron style years later on campus where Unix was still shunned at the time. I believe in IBM's defense they were even involved with standardizing the far more sane ASCII but due to Sys 360 popularity and variants from prior years EBCDIC was just the way it was (and in 1990, that should no longer have been true but there it was). Opting to learn MC68000 later (which actually had applied use in micro controllers) took away most of the scars.
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would say the users are probably ageing for sure.

All the kids that I know are sticky with Apple.

They don't like Windows 8 and they don't want even try Linux, it's too hard. The only stuff that they might use is an Android phone and it's border line.
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depontius
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

d2_racing wrote:
I would say the users are probably ageing for sure.

All the kids that I know are sticky with Apple.

They don't like Windows 8 and they don't want even try Linux, it's too hard. The only stuff that they might use is an Android phone and it's border line.


I'll mildly accuse you of "Get off my lawn!" disease, and add that my daughter's boyfriend is a refreshing alternative to the stereotype.

He uses computing as a tool, but also recognizes that free software has its merits, in spite of the fact that commercial software is usually available free or cheap in a university setting. This winter and spring it was about GPS, as he got his thesis ready. The standard tool is ArcGIS, and it was heavily pushed by the faculty lead. (who gets sweet deals from the company, of course) He also looked at QGIS and is able to balance the two on their merits.

More recently this PRISM stuff has annoyed him, and he has taken on more of my political computing edge.

He's not lazy, and not afraid of "hard". (I hope he's not the exception that proves the rule.)
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Hypnos
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

People talk a lot of crap about "Millennials" and how they are more entitled and lazy than ever before.

IMHO, while cultures may wax and wane, in any context the aware and hardworking people come out on top.
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KLarsen
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think I fit the stereotype too well - I'm about 30, don't have any professional background in computers, but have been running Gentoo for about 8 years now. Everything I've learned about Linux I've learned from this forum or the internet in general. I've no wish to change to Ubuntu, Windows, iOS or anything else. Sure, Gentoo might make me pull out my hair once in a while when it doesn't cooperate, but I actually prefer it that way; it's definitely better than being presented with a ready-made OS that you have no idea what is doing under the hood.
I only wish I could contribute something to Gentoo or Linux in general, but my lack of knowledge in programming etc. makes it difficult. At least I can keep bugging my friends to try Linux (though without luck!).
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steveL
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

KLarsen wrote:
Sure, Gentoo might make me pull out my hair once in a while when it doesn't cooperate, but I actually prefer it that way; it's definitely better than being presented with a ready-made OS that you have no idea what is doing under the hood.

Heh. The thing is, there's a world of difference between the issues you encounter with Gentoo, ime, and those on a binary distro. When Gentoo users complain about things "being broken" it usually just means they can't get the latest version of something to build. Meantime you can still use your system with the existing versions, and the upgrade issues are typically sorted out with a later --sync, or you can find lots of help on the forums, in #gentoo and on the gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing-list.

And since everything is compiled from source, once it builds, it's typically rock-solid (if you're on stable :) as well as customised for your setup, so efficient.

When I used binary distros, there'd always be some sort of library mismatch leading to weird behaviour, and I had to re-install every 6-8 months, just to get a new set of weirdness.
Quote:
I only wish I could contribute something to Gentoo or Linux in general, but my lack of knowledge in programming etc. makes it difficult. At least I can keep bugging my friends to try Linux (though without luck!).

If you're on the forums helping others, then you are contributing. Useful bug reports are essential for QA, which cannot happen without that feedback.

If you want to get more involved, learn bash (#bash on irc.freenode.net) and play with making your own ebuild (#gentoo-dev-help) and help newbs out in #gentoo. #gentoo-chat is fun too, when you want some downtime.

Though if you want to learn to code, the best introduction is "The Awk Programming Language" (Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger, 1988) which is a true classic, imo. See: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/awkbook/ | http://awk.freeshell.org/FIXES and /join #awk if you want some help with it.
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bwaldow
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some of the answers are catalogs of old technologies, so...

I exhausted the Math textbook while in High School, so they sent me to Shop, which had a Wang 720C Programmable Calculator - display was 2 banks of 10 or 12 characters of Nixie tubes for X & Y registers, but it also had an IBM Selectric Typewriter that could plot at 100DPI! It also used proprietary punch cards or binary switch banks for code input - I used both at times (hanging chads, anyone?). I coded it to play SpaceWar (output was slow, though, and the players had to take turns inputting their moves).

FORTRAN on a Nova via batch punch cards.

APL & BASIC at a summer camp at a University on the SERDAC network via TTY printers with no video display. APL was input using digraphs (two character codes) to replace the special symbols. In class our instructors had glass displays though, as I remember watching the display when they encountered the code we put in to crash the system.

I did nothing with computers at University, but listened to others talk about their exploits on the ARPAnet.

My father bought me an Atari 400. I maxed out the RAM (48K) and wrote a 2 pass macro assembler for it and coded 3D animations (page-flipping - it was too slow to move anything but sprites in real time).

A Taiwanese IBM-XT clone with 640K & DOS and a Hercules (clone) card and a Green Screen and AutoCAD and I started coding LISP (AutoLISP, anyway). Then a 386sx-16 and actual animations. I don't recall if I had a 300 baud modem, but I recall using the 1200 & 2400 baud ones.

Then SLS Linux. Then SuSE, Red Hat, Debian, early Ubuntu, then Gentoo.

Now I split between Stella (CentOS re-mix), Xubuntu, and Gentoo.

I'm curious about Slackware, but I am more familiar with handling Gentoo for working out problems. The devil you know... (or at least are acquainted with).

Cheers,
Bret
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jpc22
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm 20 started using gentoo about 1.5 years ago and joined the forum last year.

I tried linux mint for about 3 months and i tried installing hardened gentoo. The learning curve was not easy, but once i tasted gentoo ,i could not go back to xp or mint.

I like thinkering with things like selinux and full disk encryption.
I really like the flexibility of gentoo, as i can use whatever combination of apps that fits me.

I think you cannot break gentoo, you can only get headaches when you start messing with stuff above you current knowledge level or do a stupid mistake like uninstalling udev...
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jpc22,

Not wanting to start a flamewar but
jpc22 wrote:
a stupid mistake like uninstalling udev...

Why is that stupid ... it might even be the first step to sanity, if you planned it.
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vaxbrat
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 5:11 am    Post subject: early 50's Reply with quote

So my username probably clues me in as an old fart....

First computer was an HP2000 that was probably one of the first computers used by a high school in the DC area (mid 70's)
Second computer was as PDP 11 (but PDPBrat never even considered) and was gateway drug to Vaxen. Had a smattering of other weirdo's, Varian anyone? First actual computer I ever bought for myself was an Osbourne Exec shortly after osbo went bankrupt. Second actual computer was an Amiga 1000. Didn't actually break down and buy a clone until 486 days and even then I ignored intel and went with an AMD 486 DX2-80.

BTW what is this EBCDIC anyway? We ASCII guys on mini's were farting in your general direction way back when on our IBM 029's :-)
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 3:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a shame that OpenVMS and CDE were not GPL'd 10 years ago; better late than never for CDE at least.
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andjeng
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 8:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i know gentoo user from indonesia who was 13 years old. he frequently asking for help about configuring stuff.
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 6:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Working with computers for 32 years now, so I am one of the Old Ones 8) ...

But I work with Gentoo since 2004 (10 years).
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 7:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aCOSwt wrote:

8O geriatric computing 8O
Hey folks, shouldn't we report that one ?

You mean as far as rampant age discrimination being the norm in this industry? In more current US employment anyway. Though perhaps only a small minority of Gentoo users are in the Comp.Sci. and related fields.

Yeah! Get em! ;) My grandma now uses an iphone and I never thought she'd use a computer in her entire life.
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm 24. I've been poking around for ages, moved to linux as my system-of-choice-for-everyday-use nearly 10 years ago and around 3 years ago when I moved to gentoo was when the real fun began. To keep up with my history I should move to LFS within a few months :lol: but so far gentoo has been good enough for me. I guess I'll stay here unless something really bad happens.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When i start using Gentoo the handbook clearly state : "By using Gentoo, times will get reverse and when time pass you will get younger. Make sure to not use portage too much or you will be so young that you will be no more enough tall to climb on your chair".

Someone has lie to me?
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Is the Gentoo population aging or getting younger?

Personally, I am getting older. (Just turned 70.)
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John R. Graham
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Small, world; me, too. (The getting older part, not the 70 part.) ;)

- John
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khayyam
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 3:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One day someone will look apon the dorian_gray.eclass and see that flesh for what it is ... eeeewww.

Oh ... me too.

best ... khay
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gentoo was actually the first system I used back in 2006. My roommate in college was a huge fan. I couldn't wrap my head around it in the beginning and really enjoyed debian. Now you cant even get me to use any other distro on my desktop. As for my company equipment though its been all rhel.
I am 27 which i guess isn't that young anymore.
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ak47gen
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Millennials generation here! The reason for my generation for being a bunch of entitled careless babies is because we never had to fight for what we earn. The groundwork was already laid out. We don’t care about writing assembly or C since it is pointless. We don’t care about audio quality because our Dr. Beats are cooler. It just comes down to our generation doesn’t care about tinkering or engineering. Thus I would assume your population of most gentoo user are not Millennials. This mentality is slowly changing with mainstream wanting to promote STEM. We have an upraise of Maker/Hacker Spaces, Software boot camps, and various famous people in the news for having tech companies.
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