The beauty of gentoo

[duaneb]

Gentoo was the first distro I tried, and nothing has quite measured up ('cept maybe for ubuntu.)

It was quick to set up, a couple hours at most, but you only do it once, right? The kernel was the hardest; I was new to doing it, and so when my sata driver nv_sata, I think, wasn't compiled in, it had a kernel panic. But aside from that, it took about an hour to set up all the needed packages (fluxbox, firefox, nvidia drivers, openexr, etc). This has been the most stable distro I have ever used, and every imaginable package is in gentoo's portage. The USE flags are incredible; they allowed utmost control over my system. Also, gentoo provided me with a pleasant console development experience.

I would recommend this for anyone wanting a long-term stable development environment.

[FenrisAbraxas]

Gentoo was the first distro I tried, and nothing has quite measured up ('cept maybe for ubuntu.)

It was quick to set up, a couple hours at most, but you only do it once, right? The kernel was the hardest; I was new to doing it, and so when my sata driver nv_sata, I think, wasn't compiled in, it had a kernel panic. But aside from that, it took about an hour to set up all the needed packages (fluxbox, firefox, nvidia drivers, openexr, etc). This has been the most stable distro I have ever used, and every imaginable package is in gentoo's portage. The USE flags are incredible; they allowed utmost control over my system. Also, gentoo provided me with a pleasant console development experience.

I would recommend this for anyone wanting a long-term stable development environment.

I have to agree, tried Ubuntu but at the end i returned to Gentoo, my laptop still used Ubuntu but my desktop PC now is Gentoo :P.

What i dont like with Ubuntu is that it won't let me install the packages i want to.

Yeah i know about repositories, i know about .deb packages and i know about automatix and easy ubuntu, but why do i have to get an external program (like amsn which i had to install lot's of stuff and finally i decided to just install automatix).

In gentoo is something is "masked" (that means it may contain bugs or stability issues) you just have to add a line in a portage config file (but the package IS in the repos) and you have it installed.

Gentoo also boosted my Linux knowledge (when there was no GUI to install it it was a real challenge xD).

But i have to admit that Gentoo is a little more complicated to maintain (specially when you do a global update and have to edit all the new config files :)). But i would recomend it to anyone who wants to dedicate sometime to learn linux from the inside, learn how to compile your kernel, learn to edit config files (not manually tho, protage provide etc-update which i think it's a wonderfull tool).

Portage, if used properly, is the best software installer tool :).

I use my Gentoo install mainly for developing Java apps :) Good Luck with the distro you choose anyway. Ubuntu or Gentoo, it's up to you to decide :)

[zaratustra]

Keeewl, I am not the only one hardcore geek and control phreak here... It is so wonderful how huge control you have over it:) And it does only and everything you say and want. It doesn't try to be clever and do things on its own if you don't agree:):guitar:

[RAV TUX]

Portage, if used properly, is the best software installer tool :).



+1

(this is exactly what I have been trying to convey)