K.Mandla's big Gentoo adventure

[K.Mandla]

I decided it was time to get my hands dirty. I have a spare laptop (yes, a spare ... everyone has spares, don't they?) installing now, and I'm picking my way through the howto guide.

This is a first for me; I cut my teeth on Ubuntu and dabbled in Arch a little, but Gentoo seems like a necessary next step. I want this to be a learning experience, even if it falls flat.

So far I'm fairly comfortable with the process. I like the idea of booting into a live environment and building the system underneath you.

Of course, I'm just getting started and I'm taking it as slowly and carefully as I can. I managed to download the stage 3 tarball and the portage files, even though I'm not sure yet what they do.

The test machine is a 1Ghz Dell Inspiron 8100. I decided on a laptop instead of a desktop, because I understand that it can take days to build a system, and I'd rather run a 60W adapter than a 300W PS for days on end.

Wish me luck! If you have any advice, I'd be more than happy to hear it.