Why did you choose Gentoo?

[Given M. Sur]

The reason I decided to switch from Fedora is because I wanted to run newer software, specifically kernel 2.6.1 (now 2.6.2 and soon 2.6.3).

I'm still pretty much a n00b when it comes to Linux, and I didn't know how to update my kernel other than through up2date which only offered 2.4. So I went in search of a distribution that would make the update easy. I came across Gentoo, read the installation manual, and thought "I can do that."

In the two and a half weeks that I've had Gentoo on my system, it's became my favorite OS. I'm definately glad I switched.

So why did you chose Gentoo?

[Given M. Sur]

-- edited --

[Soviet Bread Line]

I chose it after using it. About a year ago, I was using Slackware exclusively with some software dependency issues, and a friend recommended I give Gentoo a try. Well, I did and the rest is history.

[pranyi]

I went from SuSe (for more than 1 year) -> Mandrake (for more than a year) -> Debian (for some weeks) -> Gentoo (since March 2003).

The reason leaving SuSE was, that thet it was very sloppy : a lot of stuff simply did not work, most notably multimedia and desktop stuff. It's file hieararchy and configuration was also quit unstandard.

Mandrake was much better, but still it had RPMs and was hard to update. I always had to compile newer stuff from source, which was simple for smaller pieces of software, but was very hard for more fundamental stuff like XFree/GTK/Qt etc.

Debian's packages was a way better, but the packages were quite old. Compiling newer softwares downloaded from the net was really hard.
I also had problems configuring the system. I used the GUI of SuSe and Mandrake, so I did not had the know-how of modifying the configuration files manually. The Debian GUIs were also hard to use.

Then, I intalled Gentoo parallelly to Debian in a chroot environment from stage 1. First I did not believe it would work. It took 4 days to get the KDE, but I spent at most 3 hours of my own time basically reading docus. And it was a great investition. After about 3 years of using Linux, I finally understood a lot of fundamental stuff. These are easy, but normally I did not bother learning them. Gentoo made me learning this stuff, while not posing high barriers on the installation.

The main reason, still using Gentoo is that I always had to compile a lot of stuff manually anyway. My impression was that a lot of stuff worked simply stabler if I compiled myself on the box. E.g. not resolved symbols and similar things occured quite often with precompiled packages. All these issues vanished when compiling myself, but sometimes it was nontrivial: compiling mplayer took some hours time and lot of care before using Gentoo. Now, it is just a matter of simply emerging it.

So, I think, the main reason I use Gentoo is stabilty. Most people say that Debian or SuSE is more stable. My experience suggests the opposite.

[Birnenpfluecker]

When I wanted to turn my back on windows, I asked a friend of mine, which distro I shouldchoose. Well he said Gentoo, and here I am. Have never looked back.

[Aurora]

Well...

I wanted to try something new. Kind of.

I decided to ditch RH when I found this really great metacity theme online. However, when I installed the theme, half the modifications didn't work. Turns out that RedHat's bluecurve crap kept my computer from being completely themed. I was peeved. I played with stuff for hours, and I came to realize that RedHat restricts certain parts of it's gnome menu from being changed.

Then I had had it. I wiped that crap off and installed Gentoo off the recommendation a friend had made YEARS before. (he started using Gentoo in the old days).

Anyways. I can't say I've looked back as far as Distros go. I still use XP on my laptop (requirement for my java programming class...don't ask, I know it's stupid). I use Gentoo on the little server I'm running in my closet (darn it I can't get this IPsec to work!), and I run XP/Gentoo on my main desktop. Nevertheless, Gentoo is the best Distro I've found thus far...

[NecroticFlower]

i originally tried Redhat around 7.1 (i think it was 7.1, might of been 7.0) anyways.. then i got involved with KDE a lot and discovered that Redhat broke KDE and replaced lots of KDE apps with Gnome apps.

i ditched Redhat in went with Suse for a long time but i felt really disconnected from what was going on "under the hood" so to speak. when i tried to compile a new kernel and that borked i decided to switch to Gentoo.

Been running Gentoo now since January and I'm absolutely loving it. I know what's where because i put it there, KDE works, i can compile kernels... everything, plus it's faster then hell.

[gwion]

When I wanted to turn my back on windows, I asked a friend of mine, which distro I shouldchoose. Well he said Gentoo, and here I am. Have never looked back.

similar for me. initially a friend suggested debian. installed, used for 3 hours, broke it. then another guy suggested gentoo and here i am now

[Selecter]

The reason I decided to switch from Fedora is because I wanted to run newer software, specifically kernel 2.6.1 (now 2.6.2 and soon 2.6.3).

I'm still pretty much a n00b when it comes to Linux, and I didn't know how to update my kernel other than through up2date which only offered 2.4. So I went in search of a distribution that would make the update easy. I came across Gentoo, read the installation manual, and thought "I can do that."

In the two and a half weeks that I've had Gentoo on my system, it's became my favorite OS. I'm definately glad I switched.

So why did you chose Gentoo?

Me too
I am staying with gentoo because of stability, performance, ease of use|update|solve problems, nice community, friendly and operative staff.

[Epyon]

I moved to gentoo just to see if it was faster than redhat. It was so I stayed. I also really like portage a hell of a lot more than I liked working with rpms.

[shm]

Went from Linux/PPC (yeah, the old distro.. dual boot with MacOS 8.5 on my 603e 200mhz asskicker)->Yellow Dog Linux (on my G3)->Debian (on my Athlon)->Gentoo (on my Athlon)->OSX (on my ibook)

The reason I switched from Debian to Gentoo is that Debian/unstable was always horribly old. It took about a year and a half for KDE 3.0 to enter unstable. Heh.

[jbrazio]

Gentoo give me the power of choice, customization and upgrade at a touch of a command. :-)

[floffe]

I got my new computer this autumn, and first installed XP + Redhat, but I never got the Redhat install working with network & such. Then a flatmate told me about gentoo, and now I'm here. I haven't boted in to XP since november, and I'm thinking of whether it would be ni9ce to have a separate /home partition. But maybe I want to play games at a lan party, so i keep XP around for a bit more...

[christsong84]

Cutting edge software with an apt-get type tool for ease of maintenance.

[IvanHoe]

For me, I wanted more control but I didn't want the hassles of LFS.

When I wanted to turn my back on windows, I asked a friend of mine, which distro I shouldchoose. Well he said Gentoo, and here I am. Have never looked back.

I've been trying to turn my back on M$ for years now, but I still have to deal with the borg in the working world.

[lefou]

Many year ago I used SuSE, later I tried Debian.
But alway the same problem, some Hardware wont work, there is some missing software or too old. Packages were compiled without "my" dependencies or with "not my" depenencies.

Next I tried Linux From Scratch and it was cool, I used it over one Year, but living without a package manager is no fun.

Gentoo ist LFS including a package manager and tools for automatisation, you can choose everything between an nearly ready usable distribution and an highly personalized Linux totally different from others.

I'm using it on my Laptop since 1 1/2 years and it rocks.

On University I tried Red Hat, Mandrake and Fedora, forget it...

[Headrush]

I switch from Mandrake 7,8.9 to Gentoo.

Initially i switch to see about the gains in performance by self compiling programs and to learn more about the system.

Having used it for a while now I just love the portage/emerge combination.
I have yet to find a program that couldn't be compiled and things just work right. Got sick of the dependency mess with Mandrake/Textstar/contrib/plf rpms.

Fixing a screwed up system under gentoo was so much easier too. I was able to restore my system after erasing the /usr directory with very little effort. (Did take some time )

[_dook_master_]

I came across a P2-350 for server usage, and win98se was too slow. i installed red hat, and that was even slower. then i came across my gentoo discs, and it runs fairly fast. i liked gentoo so much, that about a month ago, i installed it on my desktop, and i only now boot into windows to play SW:KoToR . best OS out there IMHO.

[Roguelazer]

First, there was RedHat 6.1. Sadly, that distro didn't support my (then new) ATi Rage 128 graphics card. So, I stumbled along in text mode for a good long while. Then, a couple of years later, I got a new computer, and a new distro. First was Mandrake 8.0, then 8.1, then 8.2, then 9.0. But I was getting tired of RPM's, and Mandrake just wasn't current enough for me. I looked at Debian and was very impressed with apt-get. So much so that I still use it on one of my computers (P1 133, 48M would take about a millenium to compile anything). But Debian was even older than Mandrake in terms of software. Then, while looking around on linux.org, I came across gentoo, and was thus enlightened. An apt-get like package manager, bleeding edge packages, and optimizations to boot! Wonderful!

Of course, all was not well. When I got gentoo, I'd never compiled a single piece of software. I didn't know how make worked, what the various gcc options were, nothing. I didn't even know how to make my own kernel. But I learned, and here I am today.

[christsong84]

First, there was RedHat 6.1. Sadly, that distro didn't support my (then new) ATi Rage 128 graphics card. So, I stumbled along in text mode for a good long while. Then, a couple of years later, I got a new computer, and a new distro. First was Mandrake 8.0, then 8.1, then 8.2, then 9.0. But I was getting tired of RPM's, and Mandrake just wasn't current enough for me. I looked at Debian and was very impressed with apt-get. So much so that I still use it on one of my computers (P1 133, 48M would take about a millenium to compile anything). But Debian was even older than Mandrake in terms of software. Then, while looking around on linux.org, I came across gentoo, and was thus enlightened. An apt-get like package manager, bleeding edge packages, and optimizations to boot! Wonderful!

Of course, all was not well. When I got gentoo, I'd never compiled a single piece of software. I didn't know how make worked, what the various gcc commands were, nothing. I didn't even know how to make my own kernel. But I learned, and here I am today.

you had to know gcc commands? I still haven't a clue on that topic

[Roguelazer]

Nitpicker. gcc options, okay?

[lemming]

I've been bouncing around distros since '94. While I was always tweaking my installs anyway, after a while it became more of a hassle.
Gentoo really made it easier to customize what I wanted without forcing me to jump through hoops if I wanted to do something on my own.

[gurke]

because it gives me what i want:
breakage -> fiddeling -> working -> breaks again -> ...

[frekiR]

portage, 'nuff said

[G-Style]

It was recomended to me by a friend of mine, he said it is the best distro out there, and it has portage as well.