Gentoo Forums

I have never used Linux before, but I am pretty resourceful when it comes to finding my own way around computers with the help of wonderful online resources like this one. I understand that Gentoo isn't really recomended for first time users, but I thought that Gentoo, with its reputation for extensive customizability along with excellent documentation and support community, might provide a great learning experience. I am eager to really learn my way around Linux but not impatient. If it takes me months to get up and running, that's OK as long as I am learning alot along the way.

So, before I start investing too much time reading through the documentation and these forums, I was just hoping to get some informed opinions as to whether this is a good, feasible strategy or not. Thanks in advance for all your thoughts and opinions!

If you're willing to read some documentation and to search for answers you'll be fine with gentoo. It's not rocket science, but some people just want all the goodies with no effort. And that's not the crowd gentoo caters too.

personaly i switched from knoppix to gentoo...
i learned the command line as soon as i started using linux with a french website that is lea linux
in gentoo i had some problem compiling the kernel because i didn't see the _ in make modules_install and i thought that it was make modules install but it went fine
and the forums helped me a lot...

GasMask wrote:I understand that Gentoo isn't really recomended for first time users...

In my case Gentoo was what made me switch.....it's elaborate install procedure gave me enough insight in how things work under linux to be able to find my way around. For me the biggest benefit is that it made me (as the ignorant windows user) aware that the power of linux lies in the command prompt. So, if you are willing to read, learn and search then Gentoo is also good for people new to linux. Go for it

ps) over the years I did try so-called newbie distro's as Mandrake, Suse and the like.
But for somebody with a good knowledge of windows those distro's simply hide too much things.
Those install never lasted longer then two weeks....mostly wasted time were I learned nothing.

GasMask wrote:I have never used Linux before, but I am pretty resourceful when it comes to finding my own way around computers with the help of wonderful online resources like this one.

Thats all you really need. Go for it, You'll do fine.

From one Gentoo-using ambitious noob to another, YES, you can.

GasMask wrote:I have never used Linux before, but I am pretty resourceful when it comes to finding my own way around computers with the help of wonderful online resources like this one. I understand that Gentoo isn't really recomended for first time users, but I thought that Gentoo, with its reputation for extensive customizability along with excellent documentation and support community, might provide a great learning experience. I am eager to really learn my way around Linux but not impatient. If it takes me months to get up and running, that's OK as long as I am learning alot along the way.

I was in the same boat about 4 years ago. I say go for it!

I remember it took me about three weeks to get a working Gentoo install back in the day ... good times.

GasMask wrote:I have never used Linux before, but I am pretty resourceful when it comes to finding my own way around computers with the help of wonderful online resources like this one. I understand that Gentoo isn't really recomended for first time users, but I thought that Gentoo, with its reputation for extensive customizability along with excellent documentation and support community, might provide a great learning experience. I am eager to really learn my way around Linux but not impatient. If it takes me months to get up and running, that's OK as long as I am learning alot along the way.

So, before I start investing too much time reading through the documentation and these forums, I was just hoping to get some informed opinions as to whether this is a good, feasible strategy or not. Thanks in advance for all your thoughts and opinions!

Go for it! I'm sure you'll do fine. Use the LiveCD, and if there's any problems, you can use IRC and ask for help.

If you want to install Gentoo please use the minimal CD installation and read the installation guide a couple of time and post here for your questions.

Good luck and welcome

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Gentoo Chat.

If you want to install Gentoo please you the minimal CD installation...

I'll second that! Unless you're an expert, if anything goes wrong using the Full CD it can be harder to decipher the errors. The min CD will lead you through step-by-step. Not only does this make it easier to backtrack if something does go wrong, but it also makes it easy to quit partway through the installation process and come back with minimal effort,,, if necessary.

I had a very basic background using Linux before Gentoo, but I got it working. . I came from a WIN background and I've found that learning to use (Gentoo) Linux over Windows is a lot like learning to drive a manual when coming from driving a unicycle. You can still accomplish the same things, but there are different methods to get there and a lot of new potential as well. Have fun exploring!

Go for it! You can do it. Gentoo is my third Linux distro. First was Mandrake which I hated after about a month....I like to tinker way too much and it was not good getting stuck in RPM hell. My second distro was Linux From Scratch which I LOVED. One of the reasons I don't use it now is because I put it on a hard drive that was going bad and I didn't realize it and my LFS crashed. What I loved 'bout LFS was the control....what I didn't like about it was the lack of a package manager.

Sure I could configure a kernel, compile software but uninstalling reinstalling and remembering what I had on my system was not my favorite. And then I found Gentoo which had everything I ever wanted.

It is an awesome Linux distro. Great community too....just remember to read and search. Otherwise everyone here is very helpful.

I have used linux for almost 8 years (wow!) and I am a girl and by no means an expert. I am more comfy but feel just as much a newbie as any other newbie.

So, in short, if I can do it YOU CAN DO IT

Do it. Most people will recommend an "easy" distro to start out, and learn your way around the system, but all you'll learn doing that is what you could learn with 20 min. on Windoze (seriously). You could try an "easy" distro like Ubuntu (I did) or Mandriva, not that either are bad, but when everything is configured for you, and you don't need to understand Linux to have it working, when a problem does arise, it's way more challenging than if you already know good commands to run, and where your system critical files are installed. I learned 3x as much installing Gentoo than I did with Ubuntu for a year (again, seriously).

The docs. are very well written, but some parts can be confusing if you don't know what you're looking for e.g. in the Install Doc. during the Portage install, you are told to download "portage-latest.tar.bz2". I spent literally 20 min. looking all over the file directory looking for the file "portage-latest.tar.bz2". I couldn't find it _anywhere_. But, earlier in the install, you run the "date" command, and the output is in the yyyymmdd format (pretty sure). Looking at the files in the Portage directory, all the silly "random" looking numbers, are actually dates. So, to me, "portage-latest.tar.bz2" was actually like "portage-20070306.tar.bz2". I'm not entirely sure I did that right, because my Portage was out-of-date when I ran emerge --sync, but it seemed to fit at the time. It's little things like that that make the install difficult, but I encounter that only a few times. The rest of my problems were rushing the install, and not reading /etc/fstab closely enough.

But you will learn so much just installing Gentoo, and it is a great distro overall. I say go for it.

When I started using gentoo, I had use linux for about a month. It took me roughly a week to finish my install but it was because I didn't read all the doc I should have read. So my advice would be to read as much as you can , follow the handbook, and it'll be a great learning experience for you

As people are saying here, if you are willing to learn, read, try, and make mistakes , go for it. It will probably take you some time getting it working, but go step-by-step and, after getting the basic stuff working, you will have learn lots that will help you with everything else.

Since I was in the very same situation as you a month ago, l would recommend you:

1) Have another PC to read docs while you install gentoo for first time, until you can view pages on your Gentoo box: This is a must-have IMHO. You are likely to struggle in some point, and the wiki and forums will be your friends there!

2) Take a bit of time to set your USE flags: Make sure you have at least the basic stuff covered there! You don't want to recompile large packages because you forgot to set cups flag, for instance. IMPORTANT: Just because you have never seen some acronym in Windows, it doesn't mean it is not important!!

3) If you are really stuck, sometimes it's better to take a break, come back later and check what you did: This depends on each persons, but I have sometimes found that the "ubar misterious won't work OMG bug" is for instance a silly spelling mistake that you simply WON'T see until you rest a bit from it.

Good luck! it's perfectly doable even if you have never tried linux before, I can prove it .

i say read some basic bash commands tutorial, read through gentoo install handbook and go for it. If you have a problem this forum is here for you.

Evincar wrote:As people are saying here, if you are willing to learn, read, try, and make mistakes , go for it. It will probably take you some time getting it working, but go step-by-step and, after getting the basic stuff working, you will have learn lots that will help you with everything else.

Since I was in the very same situation as you a month ago, l would recommend you:

1) Have another PC to read docs while you install gentoo for first time, until you can view pages on your Gentoo box: This is a must-have IMHO. You are likely to struggle in some point, and the wiki and forums will be your friends there!

2) Take a bit of time to set your USE flags: Make sure you have at least the basic stuff covered there! You don't want to recompile large packages because you forgot to set cups flag, for instance. IMPORTANT: Just because you have never seen some acronym in Windows, it doesn't mean it is not important!!

3) If you are really stuck, sometimes it's better to take a break, come back later and check what you did: This depends on each persons, but I have sometimes found that the "ubar misterious won't work OMG bug" is for instance a silly spelling mistake that you simply WON'T see until you rest a bit from it.

Good luck! it's perfectly doable even if you have never tried linux before, I can prove it .

If your net works with the minimal cd, you can read docs on that computer using links, or even links -g if you started it using a framebuffer.

Also, I found this, This site explains a lot of things about Gentoo in video.

http://www.tutorialmasters.com/

I have been using linux for 5 or so years off and on. I have tried many different distros including mandrake/mandriva, opensuse, RHEL, Fedora, knoppix, ubuntu, etc.... Never have I used gentoo until last Saturday. I did not realize just how much I did not know, that I thought I knew about linux. Just my one Saturday of installing gentoo taught me some important things I never realized were possible until then. I did attempt gentoo a few years back, and gave up nearly right away. Last Saturday while installing gentoo I felt like I knew nothing, even with previous linux experience, but I now feel that if you want to learn how to use linux, gentoo actually forces you to learn things. The support is amazing, and if you are stuck on something, people don't appear to treat you like an idiot either, which is definitely a problem I saw many times in the past on other forums. So definitely try it out, and don't try out any distros I listed above unless you want something that is easy and works with little to know effort or knowledge.

bwilbbe wrote:The support is amazing, and if you are stuck on something, people don't appear to treat you like an idiot either, which is definitely a problem I saw many times in the past on other forums.

That's why I left Debian

Gentoo it is then. The responses here have been very encouraging, and I'm excited about getting started on my mission to put all these years of Windows behind me. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, but reading Gutmann's article about Vista's DRM measures has really motivated me. For now, I have a lot of reading to do.
Thanks for all your suggestions!

Good luck then!

GENTOO RULES!!
After trying different flavors of linux i am already engaged to gentoo, but one thing ill tell you for sure you need to read, and you need to read a lot for being able to use gentoo at it's *max*; i still have a long way.

later