Gentoo Forums

Howdy, All:

Finished my RHL9.0 install last night on fairly new Athalon HW when my buddy pops up on IM and tells me RHL that I used is transforming to Fedora. I've used RHL since 6.0, for the love of Pete! I know RHL well enough to install without undue drama. u2date worked well enough. We're talkin' comfort zone, here, & I'm getting yanked out of it.

Anyway, before I go hogwild configuring the new box for self & wife, I wondered, "Hey, anything else out there that could do as well as RHL9.0?"

I've read though most of the www.gentoo.org site, checked out y'all's FAQ. Gotta admit, "portage" sounds cool. ISOs optimized for architectures are cool, too. Getting my ancient HP RISC box up again is just TOO cool.

My question is for y'all who have installed & use gentoo: "Why should I switch to gentoo?" My default alternate distro would likely be Mandrake. Also, any drama on the install?

This is part of my bid to, once and for all, make my house a Microsoft-free zone. Nothing ideological, I just like quality software.

Thanks for your time & any enlightenment.

Well the only i can tell about Gentoo is that it KICK'S ASS!! (sorry) well... see Gentoo is fast, reliable, stable, and easy to use!! for example let me backup what i just said!

Fast: You get to set defferent "use flags" to optimize applications, etc you can set your architechture to take full advantage of your cpu power!

Reliable: I've been using it for 6 months now with now problems.. my box is a Web server, Ftp server, Mail server, Game Serve... what else can i say!!

Stable: Well i think it all depends of the thing u use like flags or opptions you set during compilation! There are package updates almost everyday to help solve future holes or security risks..

Easy to use: emerge ("any aplication you want") it will download the source of the net and install the app!! "PORTAGE RULES"

in the end is up to you!!!

And i forgot ( WE HAVE GREAT COMMUNITY JUST WAITING TO HELP SOMEONE IN NEED!!)


on installing: its kinda hard but not to hard if you follow this steps

http://www.easylinuxguide.com ( look for "my gentoo install guide") and follow directions.. then after you get to the part about "fstab" use this guide an comtinue on!

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml and follow where you left off on the first guide!!!

Well the only i can tell about Gentoo is that it KICK'S ASS!! (sorry) well... see Gentoo is fast, reliable, stable, and easy to use!! for example let me backup what i just said!

Fast: You get to set defferent "use flags" to optimize applications, etc you can set your architechture to take full advantage of your cpu power!

Reliable: I've been using it for 6 months now with now problems.. my box is a Web server, Ftp server, Mail server, Game Serve... what else can i say!!

Stable: Well i think it all depends of the thing u use like flags or opptions you set during compilation! There are package updates almost everyday to help solve future holes or security risks..

Easy to use: emerge ("any aplication you want") it will download the source of the net and install the app!! "PORTAGE RULES"

in the end is up to you!!!

And i forgot ( WE HAVE GREAT COMMUNITY JUST WAITING TO HELP SOMEONE IN NEED!!)


on installing: its kinda hard but not to hard if you follow this steps

http://www.easylinuxguide.com ( look for "my gentoo install guide") and follow directions.. then after you get to the part about "fstab" use this guide an comtinue on!

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml and follow where you left off on the first guide!!!

The main thing I like about it is portage, as you mentioned. It's just so easy to install and manage things!

Mozilla got stuck!! danm p2p!!

The Gentoo install is involved, but very well documented. Get through that, and you'll be well-informed about your system, and feel (rightly) that you're (really, finally) in control of your system. And, you'll have a minimal install, from which you can then install only the things you want, with the features enabled that you want.

Which brings me to echo: portage is fantastic, arguably better than Debian's apt. It's hard to describe why without actually seeing it in use, but the ease of package installation, the ease of upgrading, and the automatic handling of dependencies all have big parts to play.

Well, the install docs are good. They guide you through every step, while at the same time remaining quite short and unscary (unlike others docs Ive tried reading). Plus there's the (usually) very helpful forum guru's to help you during and after installation.

Then there is Portage. Huge selection of packages, probably all you'll ever need, plus it handles all the dependancies of course. Its what makes Gentoo my choice.

I've always believed that things should be designed the way I want them. Not the way others think will benefit me. I buy shoes that fit me. I eat fruits I like. I'm saving up to purchase a custom built car. I hope to design and build my house in the future. I am anal with regards to products and tools. If they don't fit, if they don't feel good, I don't get.

My attitude is equally unforgiving with regards to my operating system of choice. Long before I became a Linux advocate, I had always dreamed of an operating system streamlined and compacted for my needs. An operating system I will build from the scratch. An operating system that will contain only what I need and nothing more, or less.

I found Gentoo after several ordeals with other Linux distributions. At first, I thought I was dreaming. I could compile the whole operating system from scratch. I could further optimize the whole operating system in tune with my computer's hardware architecture. I could update my system on the fly via high quality intelligent tools. No more CD upgrades. I could install only packages I need. And I could do so via just one command.

It was too good to be true. Without hesitation, I backed up my documents and wiped clean other Linux distributions from my hard disk. I proceeded to install gentoo. It was time consuming. It was fun. It was rewarding. Portage, gentoo's package manager, simply impressed me and continues to do so. The community is great both here on the forums, on IRC and on the mailing list. I strongly recommend you join them all. The gentoo IRC channel is the most lively channel I've ever been a part of.

If anyone is patient enough to install gentoo, one can also expect the person to be patient enough to assist you with any problems you may have concerning gentoo and linux in general. Gentoo prides itself in one thing, it's patient and friendly community. We also pride ourself in another. The best package manager to brace the Unix community. I have often caught myself saying, “This is how Linux should work”. Welcome to the community. Welcome to your own operating system. Welcome and have fun.

Edited b/c i didnt read well enough to know you wernt a total newb.

Well put Mystilleef! (Not all users are as anal as he(going by avatar) is )

Welcome to the forum jfruser. I hope you find gentoo linux to be as enjoyable as I have. I think you should know that RHL/fedora are pretty much the same. Try to update some s/w like as kde. After the hell you'll go through with that you'll understand why portage is so nice! That is actualy why i started with gentoo. I wanted kde3 and MDK only had kde2. I found out that it is nearly impossable to upgrade stuff in rpm distros. Now im running kde from cvs (thanks caleb and imlarryboy!) which is soon to be kde3.2.

side note- dont the the gnome guys fool ya, kde is much nicer
/me dons flame retardent suite. (dont worry flames arrnt too comon around here. we like to joke about it though.)

Because the logo is cool!

...and all the stuff everyone else said...

I use Gentoo because it allows me to setup exactly the system that I want. I run two very stripped down Gentoo servers (Pentium 200). I found Gentoo very easy to setup a minimal installation on these old machines. Instead of installing Redhat and stripping out the unnecessary things, I installed Gentoo and added only the bare essentials that I personally needed.

I also run Gentoo on some high-end desktops and a laptop. I love being able to easily emerge and try out different applications. Instead of getting the option to install the windows manager or desktop environment that a distrobution believes I should be able to install I have dozens of options in /usr/portage/x11-wm/ .

I have Redhat Fedora installed on my laptop for testing alongside Gentoo. I really like Fedora's polished desktop and the inter-application consistency. But I find myself booting into Gentoo far more often. I guess I just like being in control.

I previously tried to install Red Hat 7.3 and Lycoris about a year ago and they would just lock up during the install (AMD K6-2, Intel HX, Matrox Millenium). I tried Red Hat 8.0 and it installed, but KDE was slooooooow. So I pretty much gave up on it for a while.

I recently tried Mandrake 9.1 on my current computer (Athlon 1800+, SIS 745, GeForce II GTS) and it installed great and ran ok, but I didn't like the subscription thing they had going to get the new release.

I looked at the SUSE 9.0 live CD and it's ok, but SUSE is just too "corporate" for me and their website looks similar to like a big M$ commercial. They got the "Dell Dudes" brother on there and the dumb slogan "just change."

I downloaded Slackware and installed it and from the documentation on their website, it was almost impossible to figure anything out short of learning basic stuff that I can find anywhere.

I was seeing that other Slackware users were praising gentoo for being fast and "pure" like Slackware so I came here and read about the portage thing and decided to give it a go.

I was an ultimate n00b when it came to linux, but now I have it installed and learning alot more alot faster. The portage is complicated to learn, but it's worth it.

That is why I am using gentoo.

jfruser wrote:My question is for y'all who have installed & use gentoo: "Why should I switch to gentoo?" My default alternate distro would likely be Mandrake. Also, any drama on the install?

Any drama on the Gentoo install? Not as long as you follow the install docs. (As compared to Mandrake where you nuke your whole partition on accident because the French developers couldn't make the partition tool understandable).

Seriously, with Gentoo you're in charge. And it feels really good. The drawback is that you will probably rely on good Linux net drivers and a good internet connection.

The pre-optimized iso's seem pretty nice. I do however always use the traditional Live CD, setup a partition and extract a stage2-Athlon-XP tarball.

Since you have probably already compiled you own kernel at least once (or at least know what hardware you have, so you can check the correct boxes) this should be a piece of cake for you. Gentoo is about learning to love the command prompt, from the best of my knowledge this was true back in RedHat 6 days.

With Gentoo, what you gain is a stable system. More so than Mandrake. Not having tested RedHat, I can say nothing about its stability. I'd probably try Fedora Linux before testing Mandrake if it ever got to that.

becouse it starts with g*

Thanks a bunch for all the input, folks.

I think I'll try it out on my Athlon box and see how I like it. If it works out there, it might mosey on over to my old HP 735 (still running HPUX 10.2), just for yucks. I have a soft spot in my heart for the old hardware.

Good documentation? Now THAT is remarkable.

Hope you have a pleasant experience.....it's quite normal for your first (succesful) installation to give you an almost spiritual feeling!

I don't think i'll ever forget the feeling of seeing it boot for the first time and thinking "Wow! i built that!"

Raoul_Duke wrote:Hope you have a pleasant experience.....it's quite normal for your first (succesful) installation to give you an almost spiritual feeling!

I don't think i'll ever forget the feeling of seeing it boot for the first time and thinking "Wow! i built that!"

Like this, by any chance?

I felt like that the first time I got it to boot too. Although it might just have been the sleep deprivation .

Barkotron wrote:

Raoul_Duke wrote:Hope you have a pleasant experience.....it's quite normal for your first (succesful) installation to give you an almost spiritual feeling!

I don't think i'll ever forget the feeling of seeing it boot for the first time and thinking "Wow! i built that!"

Like this, by any chance?

I felt like that the first time I got it to boot too. Although it might just have been the sleep deprivation .

Lol, that's the exact comic strip i had in mind......god bless hackles