Hello, newly active members! Where have you been?

[szatox]

I don't have any stats to back this claim, but FGO felt much more lively this year 2024 than a bit earlier, even during summer there wasn't really any significant drop in activity, and I wonder if we had an influx of new people.
So, those who either joined or returned to the forums during 2024, what are your stories? Where have you been and what brought you here?

Stuck (at least until the new year's eve). This seems like a great welcoming message. --Zucca

[pjp]

Moved from Gentoo Forums Feedback to Gentoo Chat.

[b11n]

Long story short: became an Apple convert in 2010, loved it, also learned to code on MS platforms and made a good living. Then, I kinda just got sick of buying computers with faster and faster processors that just get slower and slower to use. The rise of Electron apps, the gigabyte memory footprint of even the most basic one, just accepting that throughout the day my CPU is going to hover at 5-10% unless I make a point of quitting apps instead of backgrounding them.

I feel like mainstream OSs aren't made for people like me any more. They're platforms for consuming content. They keep piling smarts into them that don't work the way I do, and I'm tired of finding out how to turn them off, or that I *can't* turn them off. I figure if I'm going to be messing with my OS as frequently as I do now, it may as well be an OS that wants me to do that.

[hal8000]

I first tried Gentoo a long time ago, about 2004 with kernel 2.4.x or something. My PC was very under powered and not much memory,
but it worked. It did takes hours to emerge and compile programs.

During that time, I've tried most of the major distributions but work with Arch Linux (as it has packages other distros dont offer)
and Linux Mint. LM is probably not the sharpest tool in the box but its presented nicely and I often use the font and icon
settings in my other distros.


I can't remember where I read about bin packages, but am giving Gentoo a try again. My initial tests are impressed me, I'm booting to a Cinnamon
desktop in 13 seconds with a grub bootloader, systemd as the init system and modest hardware:
SATA hard drive, Intel i5 and 8G RAM. Have not compiled a 6.12 kernel yet, just using the gentoo-kernel-bin, so things can only get faster.

[alex-loves-god]

Hello,

May G o d bless you all abundantly!

Tried Red Hat 6.2 back in 1998 or something, couldn't really do anything with it, I was a 12 year old kid who doesn't know programming or anything about Linux, and I still don't!! I liked xeyes though! Then I've had Ubuntu 6.04 or 6.10 (or both, when they sended the cd's to your address, even when I could download it, I always requested a CD! ) I ran Berryl (the cube or something like that Compiz?) Really liked those versions, but then Ubuntu 8.xx was there and I had many issues with it on my PC. I went back to Windows and didn't touch Linux in a while. Then back in about 2010 I came in touch with Arch Linux and ran it on a laptop for a while and learned a lot about the system.

Now I wanted to try out Gentoo on my Raspberry Pi 4B (4GB?)! It's installed and it's working! Amazing! I'm trying OpenRC because I didn't want to try systemd because I already know this system, and in the past I don't really remember which init systems they had!

Peace!

[moniaqua]

So, those who either joined or returned to the forums during 2024, what are your stories? Where have you been and what brought you here?

Well, I returned in 2025 after longish breaks, but now - it is up and running. I "grew up" with SuSE first, than I think RedHat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro - whichever Distribution was willing to run on my hardware.

I tried gentoo twice before as I really love the idea behind; first time no success, second time I failed on wifi and sound (actually I was kinda close but got in trouble with time management, as I had a five hours ride to get to work) and now the third time was the charm, with gentoo-kernel though. Not all set yet, wifi is disabled right now (until after opera season - it works, but there are errors). But I need a working system and Manjaro didn't after the last upgrade - sound failed and some things more.

I must say I am impressed. There are still things that are, let's say difficult and not all is on point in the handbook. But with (only reading this time) help of the forum and wiki I do have a running system with sound an am confident that I'll get my custom baked kernel when I have time after opera season.

So, to all who are active and support gentoo in a way: a heartfelt "thank you!" , I really appreciate it.

[NeddySeagoon]

moniaqua,

... first time no success ...

All Gentoo installs end in success, even if all that happens is that you learn from the experience.
A working system is not required :)

[bumpsh]

Yea I am a new-ish gentoo user definitely new to the forums, started "way back" when on ubuntu 18.04 on some old laptop that would not run windows 10, was neutral with it at first but then I discovered sweet sweet package managers I was entirely unaware until then that installing safe software could be so easy.

I then proceeded to never look back.

and somewhere along the way I came to the conclusion that a minimal system with high levels of understanding was the optimal way to use a computer therefor I use gentoo.

[moniaqua]

moniaqua,
even if all that happens is that you learn from the experience.
A working system is not required

Well, from that point of view... BIG success

[alex-loves-god]

[seb95passionlinux]

I recently switched to Gentoo. I've been a Debian user for 19 or 20 years. At the end of 2024, I decided to seriously dive into Gentoo: I started with a month of testing—or a little longer—then I actually migrated four months ago (or more).

I had already tried Gentoo once around 2008 (maybe 2007 or 2009, I don't remember exactly, it was somewhere around that time). At the time, there was no precompiled kernel, no binary packages... It was quite technical, and I remember that a certain OpenOffice took almost a day to compile. In any case, it took me more than 24 hours to get a usable system.

At the end of 2024, I said to myself: "Let's try Gentoo again." I started by testing Redcore and Calculate. The latter, which I was already somewhat familiar with, really made me want to go further. I tried to "transform" it into a pure Gentoo, but wasn't entirely convinced. Then I came across something I hadn't paid attention to until then: the arrival of binary packages optimized for x86-64-v3, which really saves time. And so, I took the plunge and installed a pure Gentoo... and I don't regret it!

Today, I'm really happy with it: it's a very stable, solid, well-thought-out, consistent distribution, easy to manage once set up, and above all, very well documented. The community is impressively technical, yet welcoming at the same time—a nice change from some others.

[eccerr0r]

With Win10 turning off soon, all Linux is getting a boost recently?

[seb95passionlinux]

no more than for the end of XP, that of Vista, of Windows 8 or 9... People are sheep who prefer to follow the flock and therefore buy equipment compatible with the new system.

[oxEz]

Not a new user but, last time I've used Gentoo was probably around 2005-2010.

Currently installing on my home server for a test run, and plan to install on my main rig shortly later this month

Lots have changed, for the better! Feels like I'm coming back home after all these years

[pun_guin]

With Win10 turning off soon, all Linux is getting a boost recently?

I've been observing this on social media for a while: under the hashtag #Endof10, there's a lot of drumming up support for Linux, partly with bizarre justifications ("you can run Wine on it!" or "it costs nothing!"; sometimes I indulge in the fun of asking if FreeBSD wouldn't have done the trick too, which usually elicits a "huh?"). An overwhelming majority of those drumming up support are proponents of Linux Mint, I've noticed. That makes sense, as Mint is probably not a bad choice for people who "just want to tinker a bit". The desktop is already there and the forum, certainly nowhere near comparable to FGO (I really can't thank you all enough!), is "beginner-friendly enough".

Now, one could become active oneself and drum up support for Gentoo. I just have a mild fear that Gentoo isn't suitable for people who previously used Windows and just want to do a bit of Office, Steam, and web browsing.

[Stars inc.]

been using gentoo for a year now. use Arch Linux on my NVIDIA rig and Gentoo on my AMD, whether that's a good decision or not, who knows. Gentoo has been nice to me anyway and I enjoy the complete freedom of OS management. anyway, that's enough from me.

[Navar]

It's good to see some familiar names still. I see some have disappeared around 2020, so hopefully all is well with them.

I've been daily driving Gentoo since at least 2008 (somewhere between 2006-2008 is probably most accurate). Not sure who would remember me, since I abruptly fell off a cliff.

As for where I've been, well that's a long life/work/work-life balance story for a decade. Filled with a lot of irony, given where I ended up and working for, acquisitions, layoffs (AI/outsourcing, etc.) and all that nonsense. I got enough NDAs+ for a lifetime. At least the NCAs were only for a year, but I'm in a state locale where they run unchallenged (like zero existing history, so the risks there of running afoul are crazy). But hey, I got a few years of work from home, so that was much nicer, even if I ended up overworking in the long run.

I mostly dutifully maintained 5 Gentoo systems for myself and family during that time, in my free time, and apart from dev messages, was mostly me on autopilot. Gentoo was the easy part, really. Don't think I even looked at the forums (other than a cursory glance to see the axe had fallen on OTW) and some of the ongoing wiki changes made me go... hm.

Probably here due to a desire to contribute, share and no longer mentoring a team anymore, currently. But I am glad to no longer be playing SME for RHEL6-9 (ansible, git, TFE, AWS, VMWare, etc.) in high stakes production spaces at the moment. I've now interviewed far more people than have interviewed me. The burnout gets too real after a point.

I'm sure the last 5-10 years have been fairly "interesting times" for most of you too.

I'm finally trying to replace my aging Lenovo W520 laptop that I've beat the hell out of with Gentoo for a good decade+, with the newest Framework 13 laptop. Ironically, that has come with some unexpected surprises. It would be 'nice' not to just see the same espousing of only Fedora/Ubuntu as the only considered functional/supported categories, especially given the nature of the product. Call it a scratch my own itch and desire to have full control and confidence in my investment. Gentoo can tackle anything, as long as the information is made available or even discovered.

And that's information I intend to share and have improved upon, especially for an expensive modular product with an emphasis on right to repair, which is something I care deeply about.

I see OTW is long gone and that's probably a good thing. Too much polarization in the world to be associated with Gentoo support forums. The mods have enough challenges as it is.

[Navar]

Now, one could become active oneself and drum up support for Gentoo. I just have a mild fear that Gentoo isn't suitable for people who previously used Windows and just want to do a bit of Office, Steam, and web browsing.

That fear is completely rational and for more than just Windows end users.

Gentoo fits a niche, a very interesting one, just like most Linux distros try to do to make themselves relevant. It can be anything you want it to be, particularly if you have skills beyond what the developers make readily available. I suspect its biggest "competitor" is arch. At the end of the day, the developer and documentation support kinda makes or breaks both.

As far as drumming up support goes, I think it's far more important to assist in being good stewards to something that has stood the test of time proving itself in all manner of ways for 20+ years. People generally find it when they realize they need it, not the other way around. If the main excuse is of the variety on backgrounded compile time (which is easily nice/ioniced to essentially little impact) vs some bin package usage or all bin package use, then they will never be end users, as that's literally the design. I also don't think they even remotely would understand the concept of a Meta Distribution. Your install is literally, apart from some pre-configured selections on profile cookie cutter setups, unique to you vs everyone else. So that just leaves reading actual documentation for initial install and any complexities of the package manager and associated environment. And that's just far far too much flexibility and power for most people to ever desire to wrap their head around and think about. It took a long long time before my inner geek ever turned on quiet build option. That was the Matrix Effect for me.

I'm far too biased from being too used to it, so much so that when I have to support Debian (Ubuntu Server)/RHEL based production systems in the real world (DevOps/systems engineering standpoints), there's sometimes a bit of delay in re-wrapping my head around for situational awareness, admin/deploy style. Layouts differ, tooling differs, etc. Fighting with the complexities of Satellite for licensing, yum/dnf/apt, patching, etc. I mean I also maintained aged AIX and Solaris systems too, so it's not like I'm unused to pain points. None of that is normal end user though, who has been sold on sleek, shiny, kitch, fashion, or does it run my esports game, all the way.

The running joke is the year of the Linux desktop, but people forgot and missed the memo that it hasn't been the year of the Windows desktop for a long time.

And if you can be a proxy maintainer or more, go for it, providing the dev ecospace has at all improved on that vs barriers to entry. They've always needed more help.

I don't think I ever had to do less than a stage 3 on my installs, even that far back. For someone used to doing minimal installs in infra day in and day out, that's child's play. But with that said, this is as close to a very organized and purpose built meta Linux From Scratch setup as you'll find anywhere. Most media outlets have always done an absolutely terrible job in trying to explain what the distro is and why you might have interest because they have zero understanding.

But that's just my $0.02.

[ruby_R53]

I wonder if we had an influx of new people.

i'm on r/gentoo and do see mostly Arch users posting about whether they should make the switch to Gentoo, i don't bother reading thru all these posts anymore but that's already a sign that this distro is at least getting more and more attention these days

i can't really be sure about the forums part however, as i feel like most people that are new will just go to a different platform like Discord or stay on said subreddit to discuss

[llamafluff]

I am new to Gentoo. Been building computers since the Amstrad CPC 464. I am loving Gentoo, Firefox was a huge compile but worth it. Wine is hard to get working. Everything else works great. I use to use Mint Linux but this blows that away. I use Wifi and I use wpa_gui it rocks! Next will be avr-gcc. Wine did work for Payon Stories but I am looking to run on other servers and this wine crashes and I am a bit clueless. Gentoo is a real learning experience and I enjoy that. Have fun take care.

[munsen]

I just came back from using a variety of other distros. The story really isn't important. I never stopped loving Gentoo.

[ppurka]

Just checking out the new forum

[Chiitoo]

Welcome back, one and/or all!