Gentoo on laptop???

owemeacent · n00b Joined: 06 Apr 2014 Posts: 32

I've got a work desktop that I installed Gentoo on during the Fall. I really liked it. I've got Arch on my laptop, which is pretty powerful; i7, 8gb RAM, and nVidia GTX. I'm thinking about installing Gentoo on it this summer. But I can't bring myself to do that because I'm afraid I'll mess up something(it took me 6 installs to get everything right on the desktop, once it was the graphics, other time it was sound, or UTF, or GRUB). And the thing is that I'm a fan of GNOME, which means I must use systemd, I'm ok with OpenRC too, it's just I must have my GNOME 3 or I will freak. The other thing is I want to run the sleekest operating system imaginable, again, only possible with Gentoo, my desktop, which was made during the earliest Vista days, AMD Phenon x3 and Radeon HD3200 and a 4gb ddr2 ram, with systemd boots up in 9 seconds, compared to 21 seconds on my laptop with Arch.

cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969

I don't really understand what you are asking. You can install Gentoo (or any Linux) in parallel with any
other Linux if you have the disk space. I'd advise against sharing home directories, though; use a
different login for each separate install.

Will

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

If you are worried about how long it will take you to get Gentoo running, I'll share this piece of personal experience. My first install took about 3 months to get working correctly. My next one took a weekend. My current install took about an hour, maybe two. My point is you get faster with experience.

And if something goes wrong, you have backups right?
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

ct85711 · Veteran Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1791

I also agree in that, you'll get faster in setting up your system, the more you do it. I've reinstalled gentoo numerous times on several machines, and the only thing that ever took too long was compiling everything; otherwise getting the stuff setup doesn't take much time anymore. While, I don't use systemd (no point for me, when it doesn't add any kind of benefit over openRC for me, and boot time is a moot point in my case, for a machine that doesn't get turned off). Chances are, you may be able to copy your kernel config from arch; and use it as a seed config (which has the added bonus on having the necessary drives you need for your laptop enabled).