Install?

[TheCelloDude]

Hey guys im thinking about switching from Fedora Core 3 to Gentoo Linux because i heard that gentoo is lightning fast. I also heard that the installation is a B****! and im ok with linux im just not GREAT so im curious if anyone out that has some Really good documentation for an Install of a easy to use guide (Prefebly one that sounds like its talking to a 3 year old)

And i was also curious, is there any difference performance-wise in Gentoo between Gnome and KDE? (In Fedora, KDE seems to slow down to a crawl when i try using Azerus.

Thanks!

[UgoDeschamps]

Here is probably the best tutorial that can be made... :P as for gnome and KDE i dont think that there is any performance +/- on any of them under Gentoo or any other Distro.

Also, i wouldnt consider Gentoo lightning fast... it is faster then other distros, but nothing REALLY on top of all others... I use mandrake, and I have the i586 release... which is pretty close to the architecture I have

[yogi85]

dude...well..i have to say..among all the distro's i've used...GENTOO IS THE BEST !!! i'm using fluxbox,motif and also enlightenment as my window manager...u can see the difference between other distros and gentoo... yes...the install is easy..ehhehe...i'm saying tht because i've install gentoo more than 20 times...better believe it....the installation is not for faint hearted...the amount frustration u have to go thru...old ppl say the forbidden fruit is the tastiest one....yupp...u get to taste it at the end of it...when u compile...u finish...u know...it's like the programs are less buggy...i would recommend it .. ...go on..try it...the linuxforums.org here to help u out if ur stuck...juz follow the handbook...and tell us wat u feel

[Stormblazer]

The big advantages to gentoo are 1) the portage system and 2) the resulting customizability.
The reason installation is more difficult is also because there are a lot more options.
Gentoo allows you to set USE flags which define what features get enabled or disabled system wide. Two examples are gnome and gtk for gnome and gtk support.
If you're using gentoo, you're selling yourself short if you don't do either a stage1/stage2 install or a stage3 + recompiling everything.

Portage is gentoo's package management, which by default installs everything from source based on the settings you define in /etc/make.conf, and it has a very large number of packages, and if one's not in there, or a more up to date version hasn't been added to it yet, it's pretty easy to make some local additions. And of course it has dependency tracking.

I would make sure you have access to the gentoo handbook while you install, or you'll get pretty confused. That handbook should be renamed the installation instructions IMO.

[Lotharjade]

Does the gentoo handbook make you recompile when you follow it? What exactly does recompile do? How do you recompile?