Is Gentoo for me?

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Jayjem · Post by **Jayjem** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:35 pm

Hey guys!

I've recently stumbled upon Gentoo. I've been previously using Ubuntu but I'm not too fond of the slow speed and bloat of it. I was wondering if Gentoo comes packed with shit you don't need (unneccessary drivers, programs and any crap basically). This is my only flaw with Ubuntu (or am the only one who experiences errors and slowness with Ubuntu?).

If I read correctly, Gentoo lets me choose what I need, correct? (what desktop manager I want, what drivers I need and what programs I want etc) I'm quite new to the Linux environment but I can learn, and I will. Is Gentoo quite easy to get the hang of and install (as far as I know Gentoo is quite an experience compared to Ubuntu for example).

I know the basic Linux commands and configuration files.

So is Gentoo for me? (Be kind)

Sade · Post by **Sade** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:03 pm

Gentoo does let you select all the packages you want.... it's even stronger: In Gentoo you MUST select all the packages you want yourself. When you are finished with the Gentoo (handbook) installation, all you have is enough programs to let you install more programs, this means no KDE or Gnome, no GUI's no anything. It does come with a nice manager called portage which helps you install everything else.

For me this was excellent because this way i learned a lot about all the programs that embody a working Linux computer. And after that you learn that Linux actually is not the proper name for it. For me this meant that i spent a lot of time on this forum taking all the bumps one at a time.

I have a 'not so common' hardware setup and therefore lots of hardware did not work out of the box, you have to be able to live with that. Eventually everything is working, but it took me some time.

So my advise is: create an extra partition and experiment with Gentoo, while keeping the Ubuntu alive. You can even install Gentoo from a terminal in your Ubuntu.

And one other thing; a whole installation with X, kde and the rest, takes more than 3 days on my small and slow 1.5Ghz EPIA.

easy target · Post by **easy target** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:07 pm

Sure it is. It is for (almost) everyone.

You start up with really basic Linux (called stage3) and you have to install almost everything. No desktop environment, no desktop manager, no X, no sound, no drivers, no kernel. However, installation docs are really easy to understand and follow, so You don't have to be a Linux guru.

No, Gentoo does not let You choose what You need. It makes You choose. It means You have to decide even if You don't want to, for example kernel configuration is not so easy task for the first time - but don't worry, I had recompiled it about 15 times when I was installing Gentoo before I had all drivers/settings I needed. Now I just recompile it once.

Do not expect miracles. You will not get 10000x faster linux. Do not expect system will use less disk space - portage tree, lots of compilers and libraries needed to build programs will consume space.

Expect lots of time spent compiling and configuring programs :)

Edit:
About installation time: I was configuring my 1st Gentoo more then week (I had slow internet connection and slow CPU), but now (3rd time) it took me only one day.

Kollin · Post by **Kollin** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:19 pm

Stop asking questions! Just try it

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 7:54 pm

As long as you are the kind of user who can read a manual, you should be fine. The forum is here for any problem that you might have. Just pick the handbook for your architecture, and start reading it.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/

Jayjem · Post by **Jayjem** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:20 pm

Thank you very much.

Downloading Gentoo as I speak and will hopefully get it up and running tommorow.

EDIT: I have an Intel Core Duo 1.73GHz and 1GB RAM, is this sufficient enough for decent compile times?

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:58 pm

It's ok. I know people that have done in much worse hardware. I use a Sempron (single core) 3000+ with 1.5 gb of ram.

Aquiles · Post by **Aquiles** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 9:22 pm

i92guboj wrote:As long as you are the kind of user who can read a manual, you should be fine. The forum is here for any problem that you might have. Just pick the handbook for your architecture, and start reading it.

I'm going to agree with that. The point is just willing to read. I wasn't (and I'm not) a guru when I installed Gentoo for the first time, and yet I was able to get it working without too much trouble. It's just a matter of following the instructions of the exellent documentation out there (particularly the handbook) and build the system at your pace, taking your time.

As someone already pointed out, it would be a good idea to keep Ubuntu alive and switch to Gentoo once you have everything working and you feel more confident.

Last time I installed Gentoo, on my new Intel Core 2 Quad, it took me just an afternoon to have a basic system with a simple window manager (IceWM) and a few utilities (web browser, mail reader and all this "first need" stuff). From there I could continue adding more packages, such as a fully featured desktop environment, and fine tuning the kernel and the system configuration without a rush, for I already had a basic system to do stuff.

Of course it will probably take you longer than an afternoon the first time, but you're going to learn a lot.

Etal · Post by **Etal** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:28 pm

As others are saying be sure to go with the handbook and not any automated method.

I think the handbook is like a tutorial, and you really need to have went through it to really know what you're doing once you're set up. You'll learn lot of essential things that will make your life a lot easier if you encounter any problems later.

junkstr · Post by **junkstr** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:42 am

Aquiles wrote:
i92guboj wrote:As long as you are the kind of user who can read a manual, you should be fine. The forum is here for any problem that you might have. Just pick the handbook for your architecture, and start reading it.
I'm going to agree with that. The point is just willing to read. I wasn't (and I'm not) a guru when I installed Gentoo for the first time, and yet I was able to get it working without too much trouble. It's just a matter of following the instructions of the exellent documentation out there (particularly the handbook) and build the system at your pace, taking your time.

As someone already pointed out, it would be a good idea to keep Ubuntu alive and switch to Gentoo once you have everything working and you feel more confident.

Last time I installed Gentoo, on my new Intel Core 2 Quad, it took me just an afternoon to have a basic system with a simple window manager (IceWM) and a few utilities (web browser, mail reader and all this "first need" stuff). From there I could continue adding more packages, such as a fully featured desktop environment, and fine tuning the kernel and the system configuration without a rush, for I already had a basic system to do stuff.

Of course it will probably take you longer than an afternoon the first time, but you're going to learn a lot.

Intel Quad here. Took me 6 hours to reinstall with the following ->

Gnome, Gimp, Gthumb, Firefox, Vlc, Pidgin, Banshee, Xpdf, OpenOffice {Longest Compile Time}, and the list go on!

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:09 am

Jayjem wrote:Thank you very much.

Downloading Gentoo as I speak and will hopefully get it up and running tommorow.

EDIT: I have an Intel Core Duo 1.73GHz and 1GB RAM, is this sufficient enough for decent compile times?

I have installed Gentoo on MANY machines with significantly worse hardware than that. My best machine is similar to that one, and compile times aren't bad at all. So, go for it, and if you need any help along the way we will be here.

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:31 am

The only advice that I can give you is this : Read the Handbook 2-3 times and use the CLI installer and use the forum for all of your question.

Finally, you should go with a 32 bits installation, since you are new to Gentoo.

By the way, the 64 bits installation is awesome too, but it need some extra care

omp · Post by **omp** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:14 pm

d2_racing wrote:By the way, the 64 bits installation is awesome too, but it need some extra care

I wouldn't say so.

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:03 pm

I mean for exemple, Flash that need a special package to enable the flash feature inside Firefox.

AllenJB · Post by **AllenJB** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:26 pm

flash is about the only commonly used package that has issues on 64-bit linux now. Everything else is fine in my experience.

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:35 am

That's why I said awesome

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:16 am

Maybe one of these days I'll have a system capable of supporting 64-bit.

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:22 am

kalos wrote:Maybe one of these days I'll have a system capable of supporting 64-bit.

I use a 32 bits installation since 2005, even if my new laptop has a T7200 core 2 duo...I'm too conservator sometime.

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:25 am

Wow, a laptop that has something higher than a PII; you got me beat!

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:34 am

And it's a Thinkpad T60P, that's gonna hurt

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:45 am

d2_racing wrote:And it's a Thinkpad T60P, that's gonna hurt

Hahahaha, one of these days I'll have a better computer. And to think, a few years ago, my computer was WAYYYYYYY advanced compared to what most people were using. My how time changes computer hardware!

Sprotte · Post by **Sprotte** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:09 pm

About the question of bloat,

yes, Gentoo has bloat too. That's not Gentoo's fault, though. At least for the most part.

I have a rather minimal system, and I think most of the stuff in the various /bin dirs I have never used. For example most of the fonts. It has gotten better since X was modularized, though.

Sure you have to pick your packages, but the dependencies are picked semi-automatically. Yeah, there are USE flags, but those only work on packages, not the content of packages

If something decides to install all available language versions, it makes me cringe, but it's unstoppable. It's the fault of "upstream" though, not Gentoo's.

If Gimp decides to install a scripting language that I'll never use, or if "upstream" decides that Gimp needs MIDI (duh!), it's not Gentoo's fault...

Gentoo can only handle packages that it gets from _somewhere_. If _somewhere_ messes up, or includes bloat, without options to remove it, then your Gentoo will be messed up, or bloated.

Another example, if you have DSL, there's really no reason to keep any distfiles.

/shrug

forkbomb · Post by **forkbomb** » Fri May 29, 2009 7:34 pm

Just two more rambling cents here that may or may not add anything new to the discussion... :p

I'm pretty new to Gentoo (couple months, tops) and am loving it. I had the same question (is it for me?) and eventually just gave it a shot even though I wasn't sure.

My first Gentoo build was on a PIII machine (500mhz clock) with 128MB of memory (just to get my feet wet). It took patience but I got it done. Since then, I've installed Gentoo on my home server (P4, 1GB memory) and my main desktop (Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory). To me, the compile times aren't that bad if you're patient and know the difference between source and binary distros.

The big reason Gentoo seems to run faster on my main machine than other distros, as far as I can tell, has less to do with specifically compiling everything just for my processor but that Gentoo starts minimal and is built up from there. Even though I'm still learning the USE flags system, it is a great way to specify just what you want to be built into app xyz.

As for problems related to 64-bit, I have not run into a single problem on my x86_64 box, even with flash.

If I read correctly, Gentoo lets me choose what I need, correct? (what desktop manager I want, what drivers I need and what programs I want etc) I'm quite new to the Linux environment but I can learn, and I will. Is Gentoo quite easy to get the hang of and install (as far as I know Gentoo is quite an experience compared to Ubuntu for example).

Yes, but in defense of other distros, if you work with them, you can really strip down a lot of binary distros as well. For example, though Ubuntu and Fedora install by default with GNOME, there's no reason you can't convert them to KDE or even Fluxbox systems. The question has to do with the initial install. With distros like Gentoo or Arch, you start minimal and work up. With Ubuntu and Fedora, for example - and most binary distros - you pretty much "install heavy" and then pare down from there. I personally think it's easier to start minimal and build up than to try to play the "what can I remove from a base Fedora install without breaking it" game (I used to be a Fedora user).

d2_racing · Post by **d2_racing** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:44 am

forkbomb wrote:The question has to do with the initial install. With distros like Gentoo or Arch, you start minimal and work up. With Ubuntu and Fedora, for example - and most binary distros - you pretty much "install heavy" and then pare down from there. I personally think it's easier to start minimal and build up than to try to play the "what can I remove from a base Fedora install without breaking it" game (I used to be a Fedora user).

That's why I used in the past Arch and now I use Gentoo for more then 3 years at home and at work I use Gentoo and FreeBSD.