has anyone installed gentoo recently? are there any problems with it?

[ice60]

i'm going to setup a laptop for my Mum tomorrow and i want to use gentoo because it's the only well known distro i've never used. i've always been put off it when i thought about the time it must take to install things like firefox!

i sometimes get the impression gentoo might not be as great as it has been in the past, is there any truth in that? i've really got it in to my head that i'll love gentoo, so i hope the distro and the community are running smoothly :)

BTW does anyone have any useful gentoo newbie install guides lol.

[Chilli Bob]

I did an install last week using the live CD. Basically it took ages and the result wasn't noticeably faster than Ubuntu on the same PC. This was the dumb-guy version of the install, accepting defaults in most cases. If you want the real benefit of Gentoo you really need to read and understand the MASSIVE install guide. (I read some of it and understood less). Unless your Mum is a Linux guru I would give her Ubuntu or Mint. If there is a power/memory issue with the laptop, I'd give her Zenwalk.

(I'm not bagging Gentoo, I just don't have the time or energy at the moment to invest in the neccessary learning.)

[mike1234]

I downloaded and ran the latest live cd just to have a look. Although I didn't install it the live cd loaded and worked flawlessly. It loads xfce, it's fast. I always prefer to try live cd's first. If HAL can't figure out my system (i.e. Suse) forget it. Gentoo is very Time consuming to install. I agree with chillibob ("Unless your Mum is a Linux guru"). Why Gentoo?

M.

[Irihapeti]

Yeah, I was wondering about Gentoo as well. You see, I thought that Ubuntu was the only Linux distro available in my small-town supermarket (by way of a PC magazine). But yesterday I happened to notice Gentoo being exposed to the public in a similar manner. What might I be letting myself in for if I played with the distro?

[JetskiDude911]

I played with Gentoo about a year ago and I just wasn't very impressed. The setup took the better part of a day, and the install lasted several hours. In the end I didn't find it to be any faster than Ubuntu or Fedora. I have to say I didn't really like it...I might have used it for a week at the most.

[cardinals_fan]

The GUI installer is unmentionable. Buggy and atrocious. As the now-famous song goes: "stick with a stage 3 install, or don't do it at all".

[Yes]

Like Chilli Bob said, if you just accept all the defaults it will only be marginally faster than Ubuntu. It has the potential to be much faster, though.

[ice60]

i'm going to be staying with my mum for at least the next 3 months, i wouldn't just leave her with gentoo lol.

i thought about gentoo only because i don't ever really try different distros. anyway, after the replies i don't think i'll use gentoo now, i'll think of something, i like gtk+ distros, maybe i'll use Zenwalk or something with fluxbox or xfce :confused: thanks for the help.