Wow! I finally got gentoo to boot

[hazel]

I feel very pleased with myself. This is actually my 4th Linux installation but the other three were just a matter of setting aside an afternoon, putting a CD in the drive and muttering a short prayer. This is the first time I've actually built a Linux system, bit by bit over ten leisurely days, in intervals between doing other things . Of course there were a few dead ends: I had to remake the file system because it had the wrong-sized inodes, and then later recompile the kernel because I hadn't built in the right disk drivers, but it did finally boot.

The problem is what do I do with it now? I already have a good all-purpose workhorse in Debian. I don't want to just duplicate that. I know other people on this forum have multiboot systems. What do you generally use them for?

[elija]

Way to go Hazel - I guess you'll have change your sig now. Can I suggest "I'm just a little old lady but I may dazzle you with jargon!" and to think I was feeling good about myself for getting a Slackware install working how I wanted.

Most of my virtual machines are used for testing out distros and one is a development web/db/mail server.

Can Gentoo be built on a vm?

[jayd512]

Congratulations on getting it installed, hazel!

As far as what I like about multi-booting... I dunno. I think I just like to stay a little sharpened up on other distros.

[gruven]

I use Gentoo full time, and I multiboot just to try other distros out. Usually I just use my other partition to try out distro network installs, cloning, etc...

Also, trying out other distros reminds me why I always stick with Gentoo. Unlimited customization of everything.

Congratulations on getting Gentoo running, the first time is always the sweetest. Now prepare for addiction.

[MikeTbob]

I use Gentoo full time, and I multiboot just to try other distros out. Usually I just use my other partition to try out distro network installs, cloning, etc...

Also, trying out other distros reminds me why I always stick with Gentoo. Unlimited customization of everything.

Congratulations on getting Gentoo running, the first time is always the sweetest. Now prepare for addiction.

Same here, I use Gentoo for everything and I like to install the more popular distros on another partition just to goof with and have a look-see. I've not found a distro to replace Gentoo yet.
Congrats Hazel, Gentoo is not an easy distro to work with and I commend you for your accomplishment.

[hazel]

It looks as if the usual pattern is to install Gentoo, then migrate to it. But I don't know if I want to do that. I'm a practical-minded old woman after all, not a geek, and Debian suits me very well. I've taken a look at the Gentoo Community Forum and the level of discussion there seems way over my head (though they have a very useful FAQ section which I intend to plunder).

At the moment I have a system but no GUI and no apps because I haven't decided what I want to put there. I think I shall go on the way I did the installation: a little bit at a time, configure this and that, do a lot of reading, then decide.

I know I shall eventually need a desktop - a small one - but I don't know whether to go for ROX or just a window manager. What I should really like is to migrate the "heavier" programs from Debian to Gentoo because I might be able to make them smaller and lighter. At the moment they come trailing clouds of gnome libraries which eat up my limited memory.

[questio verum]

Hazel,
Congratulations on your ascension to the ranks of Gentoo user. If I wore a hat, I would be tipping it in your direction. In lieu of that, let me offer these...

I hope to see more posts from you on this, as I would like to learn more about Gentoo. When my schedule becomes more manageable, I'd like to add a "Gentoo drive" to my rig and start getting my hands dirty.

Btw...What drew you to Gentoo in the first place?

qv

[hazel]

Hazel,
Btw...What drew you to Gentoo in the first place?

I suppose it was mainly the challenge of installing it. Like many women of my age, I used to work on office mainframes professionally, so I'm used to command line interfaces (though oddly enough I had never used UNIX at work). I can still remember how appalled I was by the very limited DOS command language when I started using PCs. This was supposed to be the wave of the future but it felt like a regression! Then when I started with Linux a few years ago and learned bash, it was like getting back to something familiar; even though the actual syntax was very different from the DEC DCL shell that I used to work with, it had the same facilities.

So I thought I could probably use gentoo and that would be a feather in my cap. I looked at the installation guide in the gentoo handbook and there wasn't anything there that I really didn't understand. It all seemed very simple and logical, so I thought, "This is OK; I can do this." I didn't really think much about what I was going to do with it afterwards.

I think I'll probably use it mainly as an educational opportunity. It's always a pleasure to learn something new.