How long did it take you to install gentoo?

[slimdog360]

Ive been going since 9:30pm last night, its now 3:32pm the next day and its up to emerging package 253 of 532. So a bit under half way. Im hoping it will be done by tomorrow morning.

I chose to install kde, fluxbox and blackbox on top of the base install.

If this install stuffs up Im throwing my computer out of the window.

[rogerdugans]

First time I installed Gentoo-
Spent a week or so and screwed it up. lol

First time I successfully installed it- about a day and a half for the base, same for xfree86 and kde, so about 3 days for a full, bloatware gui Gentoo install.
And that was my third or fourth try.....

Since then, installing Gentoo has gotten a lot easier but it is still pretty easy to screw it up, and compiling stuff can take a long time, depending on hardware.

Last time I installed Gentoo it was fairly quick- started in the evening, done in the morning.

But I have had LOTS of practice.

Gentoo is a great distro in a lot of ways, amigo, and well worth the effort if you really want an optimized system.
But it still ain't easy.

[mark_alec]

First time it took me a whole weekend. Now I am pretty sure I can churn out an install on a newish box in a few hours (let it compile stuff while doing more interesting real life activities.)

[pichalsi]

First time last week it took me 2 days but then I found out I want to repartition the disc so I installed again yesterday in around 12 hours (mostly compiling). But its still far from being custiomized and I only have a few basic programs. What I found most time-consuming was reading the manual to set the use flags, make parameters and configuring the kernel, xorg and antialiasing. But i had the configuration files saved from last week so it was easier last time.

However it was nice to learn some stuff again, thats why I wanted to do it (I had a lot of free time after exams ).

[zaratustra]

It really depends what you want to install. First, stage1 or 2 are now unsupported, so you are doing it on your own. I think you should not use stage1 or 2, not because they are unsupported but because gentoo installer ins't best thing that could happen to you, and you can always install stage3, and then do a emerge -e system if you want everything to me compiled. I have been messing around with stage1 including bloody bootstrap and stuff failed on opendlap package, maybe 100/110 package, after a 10 hours of doing stuff. I have done no additional packages install, and install them after my hand. I have some gentoo expirience, so i have done this (stage3 install, downloaded stagea and portage snapshaot before, packages were compiled, not from CD) cca one hour, then, when I have runnnig system, making custom kernel conf and installing it (half an hour), and additional packages (X, firefox, amarok, xfce, openoffice) -> may vary a lot..half an hour - INF.... also you need some extra configuring if you want that everything works (few hours)

[slimdog360]

just checked it this morning about 5:30am before I went to work (Im there now) and it was up to package 447 of 532. Next time Im not choosing kde straight away.

[RAV TUX]

Originally Posted by slimdog360 just checked it this morning about 5:30am before I went to work (Im there now) and it was up too package 447 of 532. Next time Im not choosing kde straight away.

I would suggest you start with Fluxbox or E16

[slimdog360]

Originally Posted by RAV TUX I would suggest you start with Fluxbox or E16

hindsight is always 20/20

[mips]

Originally Posted by slimdog360 hindsight is always 20/20

I learned that a while ago. When I installed BSD the first things I installed were X, Fluxbox, Firefox, Xchat2. Reasoning was that these are basic things to get me into a GUI and give me the tools to access support and keep me busy while things are happening in the background.

[pay]

I either copy the gnome files from the liveCD or install fluxbox and then emerge kdebase-startkde