[coplan]

Originally Posted by kbk

I really don't feel it's newbie friendly, however, after dealing with that install, I don't feel very n00bish anymore. Still can't get the damn sound working though..

Brings up a good point that I should've highlighted on -- if you're not afraid to break things, try again and/or start over, Gentoo is a GREAT system to learn on. You really learn more about proc, daemons, modules, kernels and so on as part of the installation. It's not so newbie friendly, as everyone will tell you...but I can say I learned more about Linux using Gentoo these last two years than I did the 8 years I used linux prior to that.

[natrik]

Originally Posted by fyrephlie

ok ... so i have been using linux for about a month now...

1. how long did most people use linux before they went to gentoo... and if you started with it ... how many tries did it take to get it right?

2. considering that i do not have a LOT of extra free time to install... would you say it takes a while starting at stage 1 ... or would i be better off trying a stage 3 to begin with?

5. is gentoo really 'better' in terms of speed and configurability

2. You can do basically all the optimizations at a later date (that is, recompiling the entire installation for YOUR MACHINE and its CPU, GPU, etc.). If you install from Stage 3, you will have a working machine relatively quickly. You can then choose to recompile the compiler, and then choose to recompile whatever package(s) you want (kernel, X11, openoffice.org...).

If you start off with a stage1 install you will be waiting for EVERYTHING to compile. By doing stage3, you choose when to do this type of optimizations.

1+5. I first installed RedHat about 9 years ago. About a year after that I threw it out for Debian. I've been very happy with Debian, and still am. I've used it in mainly server environments. Gentoo is much better, in my opinion, at making things work easily. Ubuntu is similar in that respect, but Gentoo leaves the ease of customizations, from what I've seen, not to mention the BEST website and information of any distro. What I see in Gentoo is the optimization capability of debian PLUS a lot of the "it just works" factor of Ubuntu.

I hope this is useful. I know there's already a ton.5 of posts here.

My $0.02,

-- Nate

[ImNeat]

I ended up giving Gentoo 2006.0 a whirl and had good success. Although arch has been a bit easier but just as good of a learning experience [for me].

[kadox]

too ...

[ImNeat]

Originally Posted by kadox

too ...

.....?????

[kgosse]

I have been using Gentoo for several years now. I appreciate its speed and the continual learning I am getting as I work with it. I think the documentation is good enough for the install that anyone who is willing to take their time ( and perhaps have one computer for reading the docs while installing) will be successful. When I started, my mistakes that led to a broken system were the result of implusive reading of docs, quick keyboarding, and assuming steps. Sit down with time (or install in steps - just walking away from the computer when frustrated) and a functioning system is almost guaranteed. You won't be disappointed!!
Keith

[VsMaX]

1 TRyed many distros - best was slack and gentoo. First time installing gentoo it was almost stable but i needed to format it and reinstall wishit. Next time i said "next time only gentoo" And i installed gentoo. First time from stage 1 and then from stage 3 - much faster. I made something like 5 times format before i got stable gentoo And 2 weeks more to set it whole up
2. I preffer to get stage 3 but i have stage amd64 what it doesn't make any sense to do myself bootstrap.

3.Gentoo isn't better as other distros but it has one BIG plus: PORTAGE!!!

4. Today i watched documentation ( Unofficial!!!!) from Ubunt and its a lot better! There is everything. Anyways our doc is too good, but errors depend of each machine...

[phisper]

Okay, so I'm in a similar situation as you - which is why this thread so quickly caught my attention. I've been trying several of the top listed from Distrowatch, as wel as reading all of the "Which distro is right for you?" type of articles in mags and online. Basically, I was drawn to Gentoo, for reasons which are difficult to articulate other than I tend to make frequent changes to my system and it seemed rather flexible.
First of all: I *do* like Gentoo; so much that I hope to get back to it [i]someday[i].
Second of all: I have found Slackware to be the best first choice, though it was never one of those listed as such in those articles. Coming from the XP way of things, Slackware was intuitive, while still screaming its Linux lineage advantages everytime I did even common tasks, thinking "Ok, this is why I'm divorcing Windows!"

My opinion: Yes, you could use Gentoo now, with plenty of time, and likely be very happy with the results. But I'm glad that I have left it out there for later discovery. I am still working on a stable and fun Distro which allows me to feel comfortable in the trial/error way of learning without risking the need to start over (which is a daunting prospect in Gentoo, just for the time involved). Give Slackware a serious try.

Good Luck.

[mahlerfan]

I like gentoo for the documentation, community and package management. The speed is a perk but I get the same speed and responsiveness from archlinux and frugalware, and binary based package management is faster.

I'm not one of those ricers, what I like about gentoo is not the customizability, it's being able to find the answer to any problem with one or two googles. In fact I never got the it's about choice mantra, you can recompile the kernel remove and install the software you want with any linux distro!

[Juan Pablo]

In fact I never got the it's about choice mantra, you can recompile the kernel remove and install the software you want with any linux distro

But not disable unwanted feautures from packages handling dependencies at the same time