What attracted you to Gentoo?

Message

songpenguin · Post by **songpenguin** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:45 am

Why did you switch to Gentoo? There has to be a reason why the Gentoo community is growing so fast and I thought it woud be interesting to run a poll and see why everyone is abandoning their old distros.

Personally I abandoned my old distro (slackware) because I got board with it and wanted a change. Decided I wanted a challenge!

I would love to hear your reasoning.

Thanks,
Songpenguin

songpenguin · Post by **songpenguin** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:55 am

Gahh! I can not believe I forgot a community option. *Slaps himself*. Oh well, make that the "other" option minus the comment. :-/

Cheers,
Songpenguin

ToeiRei · Post by **ToeiRei** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:12 am

My reason: optimisation and tweaking until the doc comes round
Rei

mark_alec · Post by **mark_alec** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:28 am

I came over to gentoo because I was looking for an up to date distrobution which would enable me to upgrade without ever reinstalling. I narrowed it down to gentoo and debian but gentoo won out because it had far better installation documentation.

Archangel1 · Post by **Archangel1** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:50 am

Everything else is too hard...

Other distros or OS's seem easy until something comes along that their pretty GUI doesn't deal with, then they're just a pain in the ass. Gentoo just seems more logical - like it's actually been designed by a sane human being. I need to look no further than the runlevel system for an example.

Naib · Post by **Naib** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:20 pm

Where is the "RPM Dependancy-Hell" option.

After royally screwing up my Mandrake box cause the latest version was released abt 2weeks before the new GNOME and I wanted the new GNOME, i reinstalled abt 3 or 4 times and each time really messing it up in trying to install some make-shift RPM's

Tried via source and the RPM database got confused.
Heard abt Gentoo being a bit closer to cutting edge - not looked back since

pablo_supertux · Post by **pablo_supertux** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:30 pm

I had three choices but I could only take one.

My reasons:

- Portage
- USE Flags
- Friend's recommendation

feivelda · Post by **feivelda** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:43 pm

I want to get really deep in linux.
I tried Suse for a week or two, but there wasn't enough to do by yourself.
After that I tried Fedora Core 2 and 3 and that was really fun.
But then I tried Gentoo to get deep into linux.
This is 6 months ago. I killed my system 2 times in this 6 months but every
new install was a bit more learning for me.

And now all my friends who have also linux asks me how to solve there problems

The only greater experience than Gentoo would be Linux from Scratch

Headrush · Post by **Headrush** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 1:14 pm

Naib wrote:Where is the "RPM Dependancy-Hell" option.

After royally screwing up my Mandrake box cause the latest version was released abt 2weeks before the new GNOME and I wanted the new GNOME, i reinstalled abt 3 or 4 times and each time really messing it up in trying to install some make-shift RPM's

Tried via source and the RPM database got confused.
Heard abt Gentoo being a bit closer to cutting edge - not looked back since

No matter how careful you were with the RPMs you installed, if you were using any packages from PLF or community RPMs, you always ended up with problems or circular dependency HELL.

Ma3oxuct · Post by **Ma3oxuct** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:21 pm

I simply wanted to be in control of customizing my system as much as possible.

andrewd18 · Post by **andrewd18** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:04 pm

Portage ++ Geek ++ Friend ++ SPEEEEEED.

But I voted for Portage because I like the whole build from source thing. No more Dependancy Hell.

~~ Andrew D.

Headrush · Post by **Headrush** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:12 pm

andrewd18 wrote:Portage ++ Geek ++ Friend ++ SPEEEEEED.

But I voted for Portage because I like the whole build from source thing. No more Dependancy Hell.

~~ Andrew D.

But did you know how awesome portage was before you switched?? That was the reason you switched?

andyfraser33 · Post by **andyfraser33** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:54 pm

I really like the "rolling" updates and like having fairly up to date software. The only other distro I know of that can do this is Debian but where I can choose to run stable Gentoo I had to choose Debian unstable when I was using that. Although Gentoo stable has had a few hiccups, Debian unstable has the potential to introduce major problems. I was playing around with Debian the weekend before last and it appears that KDE is not installable in unstable at the moment.

Then there's USE flags. My web server, running Gentoo, also runs MySQL but I have MS SQL Server on a Windows server and PostgreSQL on another Gentoo server. I wanted to be able to access all three database servers from PHP on the web server. Debian can do this because they split up PHP into separate modules but I don't know of any other distro that can without having to manually recompile PHP. That's just one example of where USE flags are so great. I switched my servers to Gentoo because I get much better network performance than I did with Debian.

Then there's Portage. A lot of people rave about APT and I have to admit that APT is truly excellent but once I'd become used to Portage I found I preferred it.

Gentoo has it's own take on the init and runlevel systems they're incredibly easy to understand and use. I really like that.

Last but not least, there's the excellent community.

I don't use Gentoo for speed. I use conservative CFLAGS but it's nice to know that, where possible, I'm using all the features of my CPU. Gentoo does feel faster and more responsive than Debian and Mandrake.

episode96 · Post by **episode96** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:03 pm

I've voted "other" since I find multiple reasons:

* Installation: I don't like installers which take control and decisions out of my hands.
* Portage: easy to maintain, up to date packages, and everything I need is there.
* Great docs, and great support forum

I also like USE flags and building from source, but I could live without that. What I listed above is what really matters to me.

Omega21 · Post by **Omega21** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:05 pm

I myself like both Portage, and the Geek Factor.
I cant imagine installing anything without the emerge command!

m0p · Post by **m0p** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:56 pm

Hands on approach, speed, portage, educational, documentation, and geek factor!

quag7 · Post by **quag7** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:21 pm

I had been using Mandrake for several months as my first distribution, and I was having trouble learning how things worked (I was new to Linux). The GUI wizards were excellent for getting a complete beginner started but when problems would arise (and they did), I wasn't sure where to look, or how to go about learning how to learn, so to speak.

Then I read an article on Gentoo, probably on Slashdot, which indicated that Gentoo was more difficult than string theory and that only like 2 people in the whole world could install it and that several others had tried and had wound up clinically insane, having gouged out their eyeballs. The article said that there was no way anyone other than PhDs in computer science could possibly install Gentoo Linux without losing their mind or dying in the process, but that it was a manual install, and that you could see, at a high level, all the different pieces that went into building a Linux system. And if you succeeded, people would worship you as a god and kneel down in tribute before you, bearing gifts of rare spices and gold.

Which is what I thought I needed. Well not the god thing, though I wouldn't turn it down, but the educational experience.

Anyway, though this reputation still persists a little bit throughout certain parts of the internet, it really was pretty simple, and I did "learn how to learn" at very least. The locations and names of config files became clear, and the idea that configuring and compiling your own kernel was not as hard as landing someone on the moon went a long way to making me fairly fearless about messing around, and as we all know, it's through messing around that you educate yourself.

And so, as is the case (I suspect) with most peoples preferences, momentum and familiarity is why I stick with Gentoo to this day. I have 2 other machines here running Debian and one running FreeBSD, but most of what I know about *them*, I know from having run Gentoo (at least, I have an inkling of where to begin to troubleshoot or configure something because of Gentoo). I appreciate their respective virtues, but I still run Gentoo on the desktop I'm typing this on.

But all of this is why I am still of the minority opinion that, in fact, Gentoo is a superb beginner's distribution. It will familiarize you with all of the basics (init scripts, kernel configuration, inserting and removing modules, fstab, crontab, partitioning etc.) enough that once you learn those things you can turn around and easily apply them to any other distribution. (Accordingly, I'm not particularly interested in a graphical installer but to each his own.)

I suppose you could learn these things from another distribution but I think Gentoo is an excellent Linux primer, or bootcamp, or "Linux essentials" course when you're a beginner, coming from Windows, and have no idea how Linux works. It's still fairly high level (Portage and helper scripts still take care of a lot of the more unpleasant tasks) but it covers the basics at any rate and gets your started. I hit a sort of brick wall with Mandrake, but Gentoo's esoteric (to me) bottom is, though deep, quite accessible.

Thanks, Gentoo!

russianpirate · Post by **russianpirate** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 10:48 pm

Portage and geek factor cause I can say im more 1337 than my windows friends

atrus123 · Post by **atrus123** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 11:58 pm

Well a friend first mentioned it to me back when I was just starting Linux (only a few months ago). I tried it, couldn't get it installed, and found out later it wouldn't install because I had bad RAM in the PC.

In the meanwhile, I'd also heard about Ubuntu and decided to install that instead once the ram issue had been fixed.

I love Ubuntu. It's the perfect first distro, and I fell in love with Linux thanks to it.

Enter my new laptop and Ubuntu doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. It's too slow.. unbearably slow in fact, and so I decide to try some other distros:

Fedora - works alright. Anaconda installer crashes several times but finally takes. Doesn't detect sound or video. Locks up from time to time.

SuSE - works a bit better. Detects sound but not video. No lock-ups. ... But I hate KDE, and since everything is optimized for KDE, I toss it.

Slamd64 - nice, clean, fast distro, but difficult to work with, considering my lack of linux knowledge.

Mandrake - Again, I dislike KDE. Also fails to pick up my sound.

So to return to my diatribe, I finally decided to give Gentoo a shot, and much to my amazement, it takes.. but then crashes, so I reinstall it, this time it works a bit better until more kernel sync errors, and finally it takes flawlessly (I'm sure all thanks to my kernel choices), and I haven't looked back since. I love Gentoo because I actually know (or am learning how to) deal with issues that might come up, and as a result I'm learning more about Linux as a whole. I have a sense of the gui being but one program of many, rather than serving as Linux itself.

I still love Ubuntu, and I'll continue using it on my desktop, but on the laptop, my heart belongs to Gentoo

J.

Q-collective · Post by **Q-collective** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:06 am

The hands on approach: simplicity, straight to the point. Love that.

songpenguin · Post by **songpenguin** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:18 am

quag7 wrote:The article said that there was no way anyone other than PhDs in computer science could possibly install Gentoo Linux without losing their mind or dying in the process[...]

But were already insane so it doesn't matter

Thanks for the response everybody! These results rather supprised me. I thought there would be more speed/geek factor and fewer friends recommendations. Interesting. I notice that there are no Distrowatch.com votes yet...

Thanks,
Songpenguin

tutaepaki · Post by **tutaepaki** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:20 am

I switched from RedHat in that space between version 9 and Fedora. I was looking for LFS and found Gentoo instead.
I found it perfect since, because I'm always adding/removing packages etc and portage just makes that so easy.

yakapiece · Post by **yakapiece** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:09 am

I've spent years using other distributions and it comes down to Gentoo actually working, meaning that I don't worry about dependencies - compiling with the wrong options, etc.

I feel like its the retired life

Or maybe its about time a distro made my life easier.

DaveArb · Post by **DaveArb** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:33 pm

songpenguin wrote:I notice that there are no Distrowatch.com votes yet...

My vote was "other" because the quality of the community support was my primary reason for choosing Gentoo, but I likely never would have found Gentoo in the first place without distrowatch.com.

Dave

loki99 · Post by **loki99** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:18 pm

The main reason for me to switch to Gentoo was, that it allowed me to build a system stripped down to he necessities and the apps I wanted. And then I found out how much fun it is to be able to that.

Portage is just fantastic, the community support is matchless and pampering my system never seemed to be so easy.

Last but not least I'd like to mention stability. Gentoo is the first OS that stayed on my box over a year without reinstalling. Everything just works and when something does go wrong, I have a fair chance to find out what the prob is about and how I can fix it.