Gentoo Forums

POLAX wrote:Gentoo has many features...one common myth is that people run Gentoo mainly for the performance gains over other distro's. I would like to confirm or deny this...

The preformance gain is small enough to not really be a huge factor in most people's decision to use Gentoo over, say, Arch (which is a similar meta distro but uses binaries).

I'd say that my two favorite "features" about Gentoo is the fact that it's completely customizable (you don't have anything cluttering your drive that you don't want installed), and Portage (an *amazing* tool).

If I had to pick one...well...I dunno. They're tied.

I think the best feature of Gentoo, is its ability to be simple when upgrading packages/installed components. This feature is what I loved about FreeBSD and what made me switch from being an 8 year Slackware user to Gentoo.

i would have to say "Customization Ability", however i would have voted for its "involving" install and setup. i have learned more about linux and my computer in general (not to mention who supports linux and who does not). this has been by far the most important feature of gentoo for me. thank you gentoo developers and users for making a distro that is educatonal as it is useful.

_________________
Gentoo = support

Emergeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

That is the best...Simply Emerge ultra Kick Ass
Simplicity ("emerge world" and you're all up-to-date)

Too...many...options...all...good...must..pick...more..than...one

I chose customizibility. One option that should be there is ease of getting involved. That's a good one as well.

steel300 wrote:One option that should be there is ease of getting involved.

Good point...but alas I cannot modify a poll once it's begun

I switched from Debian to Gentoo because of "Bleeding Edge Technolody".. e.g, Debian/unstable was still lacking a lot of bleeding edge stuff when I switched out (DAMN potato freeze)

Now I use it mostly because of "Customization Ability".. I hardly emerge world anymore. I need a system that just works(tm)..

That is one of the reasons I would have long abadoned Gentoo.. however, there is a lot of main moving to a different Distro, so I don't do it. That and my current installation does just work(tm)

First of all, I am a ex-windows user for 10 years, so when I first switched to linux and installed Fedora, I chose the "everything" install just to make sure it works. From what I keep reading (I'm still in the process of installing it) I like the fact that if I don't want/need package XYZ, I can completely disregard it, and just never install/emerge it.

You insensiteve clod!!!
Missing option: All of the above.

nbensa wrote:You insensiteve clod!!!
Missing option: All of the above.

I totally agree, but i votes customizibility, thats why i tried gentoo

You missed an option: This forum. I'm sure it's a fairly big factor in Gentoo's success. Mailing lists suck and so does the spam you get after using them.

My vote is for package management, packages being up to date and this forum/community.

I also like it because it's a rolling/persistant package tree rather than one based on releases like redhat and mandrake which require you to burn new cd's in order to upgrade. I switched to debian because of that and I switched to gentoo from debian for the up to date package tree.

Almost all of the above

The LiveCD is cool, installing from that was an experience. It's not half as tough as people make it out to be...
Bleeding edge is good, that's why I left Debian.
Customizability, love that. You don't need eight text editors and five or six ftp clients!
Tweakability is cool, stage1 optimized for Athlon-XP kicks a$$
Newer video drivers and stuff are always good.
Love the init system, it makes sense! Yeah baby!

But my vote, a real struggle against customizability was simplicity. eeeeemerge -upD system
Now that makes my life so much simpler

Emerge sync, and portage, and keeping up-to-date with the latest source packages. A real pleasure to use once you get Gentoo installed- and it really wasn't that hard installing, once I figured out how to do it on dialup.

wrc1944

Aurora wrote: I'd say that my two favorite "features" about Gentoo is the fact that it's completely customizable (you don't have anything cluttering your drive that you don't want installed), and Portage (an *amazing* tool).

:D If I had to pick one...well...I dunno. :) They're tied.

I have to agree. Customization & Simplicity. I wouldn't be able to pick only one but had to cast my vote so I chose Simplicity :)

I would have said the community, but that isn't an option.

that being said, once you get past the initial learning curve, Gentoo's simplicity (emerge/init system), without sacrificing customization and tweakability is it's greatest asset. I was (maybe still am) a complete noob, but sticking with gentoo allowed me to bring a whole range of new skills to my Linux knowledge. I'm no longer afraid to break things, because, I'm confident enough to fix with I broke (that and regular backups).

it's the combination of a few options you mentioned.... I take portage as the greatest of great features

Plain and simple the Portage package system. Its what made me keep Linux as my main OS, and not just some hobby.

Eh, I could live without compiling... If Gentoo were to go binary only with portage, I wouldn't mind.

The init system is nice, but I was doing fine before. New packages are nice as well but I don't run unstable, so by the time I have installed something new, so has every other distro user. I'm x86 so arch doesn't matter. What is tweakability? I can tweak any distro... I think. I ain't a console purist, I'll use a gui if one is provided so livecd and all that didn't matter.

Portage is the only reason I use it. After a fresh install, type emerge kde, and all of a sudden you see 100+ dependancies install for you. I don't have time to figure out all those dependancies... that's what a computer is for. Portage does all the grunt work, I just continue doing whatever it was I was doing...

I voted for simplicity because despite the reputation, gentoo is the easiest distro I have ever used, installed and maintained.

There was a saying going around a while ago, "Came for the hype, stayed for portage." ... or something to that effect. That's basically my thoughts on Gentoo's Greatest Feature

Seriously how can anyone pass by the ebuild format without mention - it opens up package maintainership to everyone, not the select few who know how to weild debs or rpms.
The eclass based approach makes installing apps correctly really easy.

But the thing that really makes Gentoo nice is the sheer amount of software available with a uniform installation process.

Private messaging people with nothing but a link to your poll in the message couldn't be any more annoying POLAX.

~djc

Arker wrote:Private messaging people with nothing but a link to your poll in the message couldn't be any more annoying POLAX.

Didn't think I was the only one who was sent that ... agreed, it is very annoying

Arker wrote:Private messaging people with nothing but a link to your poll in the message couldn't be any more annoying POLAX.

I'll remember to send you a link to the latest Technet issue next time
I was just trying to give this poll a head-start and thought people might appreciate the invite and enjoy the poll. I sent each invitation personally (i.e. no bots or screen-scrapers) so I don't see what the problem is...

Seriously, I plan to have one of these polls each month for fun. If you don't enjoy polls and don't want to participate just send a flame(TM) reply to my mailbox and I'll skip you for the rest.

I voted for simplicity but customization and tweakability are both very cool too. Too bad you can't give three or four votes.

but yes PMing people like you have done is very annoying and could possibly get you out of here in a hurry

POLAX wrote:

Arker wrote:Private messaging people with nothing but a link to your poll in the message couldn't be any more annoying POLAX.

I was just trying to give this poll a head-start and thought people might appreciate the invite and enjoy the poll. I sent each invitation personally (i.e. no bots or screen-scrapers) so I don't see what the problem is...

I didn't get an "invite" so I know nothing more than what other people have represented here, but it sounds dangerously close to spam. Most people don't appreciate random messages pushing stuff without any explanation of what the stuff is or why it may be interesting. Especially if they didn't opt in.

Remember, patience is a virtue. If it's interesting enough, people will vote when they see the thread....