Long time Gentoo-ers

[Foxmike]

Well, I've learned that other documents are a lot complementary to the Gentoo Handbook, as the ALSA how-to, Gensplash Howto and other... they mught give you some hints as well.

As of the USE flags, I went thru the whole list to see which ones I would like. It's a long process, but I guess that to get into it, there is a little work to do!

[bmartin]

I opted to use for cfflags march=athlon-xp -03 -pipe. I'll probably just use the defaults this next time. For use flags, I just opted for what was suggested in the docs for an optimal gnome system. I'll have to pour back over the info page for other things that I'll be using I guess.

That's probably a good start. -O3 is fine; most of your performance gain is due to the flags set by -O2; many -O3 binaries are slower than their -O2 counterparts and it takes the compiler longer to do its job with -O3... I doubt it's worth it. You'd see more gain by setting your hardware acceleration flags, like -mmmx -msse -m3dnow or whatever's appropriate for your architecture. See your architecture at this page for a list of flags that are appropriate for your processor.

Are you up-and-running with Gentoo now?

[dbodner]

I still use Gentoo. In fact, I only use it for servers. I am currently testing out Ubuntu server edition but it's just not the same. I really do prefer a source based distro for servers since you have 100% control of how a particular service is installed and with what support. In the end, as long as Gentoo exists, I will use it. Same applies to Ubuntu.

Hate bringing up a very old thread, but I think it's good for discussion. I'm pretty much in the same boat. Gentoo can be a little bit frustrating from an X/DE perspective, but I absolutely love the power of portage. I currently run Ubuntu (well, Xubuntu) on my desktop at home, and on my laptop. I run Gentoo on my workstation at work, and all my servers. Some people think it's odd that I use distros on complete opposite ends of the spectrum on an every day basis, but I think that's exactly what Linux is about. The right tool for the right job, and the flexibility to use what works best.

I find Gentoo a little cumbersome with X, a DE, and in a desktop environment. There's control, and then there's micromanagement. and I think sometimes on a desktop there's a little too much micromanagement. And in a desktop environment portage's failure to handle reverse dependencies becomes a little more problematic IMO. But I often times change my opinion on Gentoo in a desktop environment, so next week I may find it's great to have the control, and that it's not too much micromanagement

In a server environment, I find portage an absolutely fantastic tool, to the point where when I work on binary systems it's frustrating. I have virtually never had to compile something by hand on a Gentoo server, and yet still get the customization to do anything I want. In fact, I find my installs have more junk in them then when I compile things manually by hand, as I spend more time looking at the available use flags than I do the compile time options in an INSTALL file. Sure, doing updates can be a cumbersome process if you have a large server fleet (running emerge -Du world blindly is scary, and compile times when doing things manually can take a while), but when you get it down, it's not too bad to manage. This (other than reverse dependency) is the only real downside to having a Gentoo server.

Oh, and the documentation and user communities are fantastic.

Gentoo and Ubuntu are definitely the two distributions that keep my interest the most currently. I like Arch as well, but it's not as mature as either of these. I also like to play around and test drive OpenBSD and Fedora (which has a lot of great development, even if I wouldn't want to use it on my desktop or in a production environment) just to see what's happening on those fronts.

[durrell]

I definitely agree about Portage. I absolutely love Portage, even though sometimes I have to manually unmask a package..it's just so awesome. It's by far the best package manager I have used.

As far as Gentoo as a whole goes, I mainly use it as my "learning" or "hobby" distro. I've been using Ubuntu since May, and made the mistake of giving Gentoo a shot really early in my foray into Linux. I got really frustrated with things that didn't work, but looking back, it was all due to user error and lack of experience. Since then I have done pretty much everything, from compiling my own kernel to the full Gentoo command line install. The kernel was pretty awesome because it really showed me the advantage to having everything built in as opposed to having modules loaded. My boot time reduced by 13 seconds and I learned a lot about the kernel itself.

The best thing about Gentoo is it has given me a TON of confidence in the Terminal. After using Gentoo fairly often for about 2 months, I feel like as long as I have a terminal I can do pretty much anything I want from a Live CD or inside of an install. Honestly, I have gotten so used to using the Terminal that in Ubuntu now I use it for most everything I do. Specifically installing packages, mounting and unmounting partitions, etc. It's just so easy to have one term and be able to do anything.

The Gentoo documentation is first class, it really parallels Ubuntu. I currently dual boot Ubuntu 7.10 and Gentoo, but my main OS is Ubuntu. Mainly because I feel at home in Ubuntu and because I have several new users that look to me for advice concerning Ubuntu, so it's easiest for me to be able to be in Ubuntu as I'm helping them.

I've tried everything from Slack to Fedora, to Gentoo, Ubuntu, DSL, everything..and Ubuntu remains my favorite. But I still like to mess around in Gentoo fairly often because it's fun.

[shane2peru]

Hey this is an old thread but some good reading. I'm rather new to Gentoo, and have really enjoyed the learning experience that it has given me. I have completely installed it twice now. I wiped my first installation as I made the mistake of trying to learn a new Desktop Environment with a new, really different distro. I will have to say that Gentoo has the greatest documentation I have seen. I have tried Suse, Fedora, Ubuntu, Puppy Linux, Mandrake (Mandriva), PCLinuxOS, and Gentoo. I keep coming back to Ubuntu for it's ease of use, quick setup. I use Gentoo, because of the great learning experience, and I can log in and use partimage to backup my Ubuntu installation, and in Ubuntu I use partimage to backup my Gentoo installation, they scratch each other's back!


Shane

[felix_beatageist]

1. As the OP said it was the occasional fixes that had to be done after doing a sync that made me want to switch. Particularly the recent expat upgrade. Becomes frustrating over time.
2. I do not use Gentoo any more.
3. Gentoo is good for learning. Very flexible and you can basically
have what you want. Portage is the best package manager I've used in 7 years of Linux distros. Good docs, forum and wiki.
Ubuntu "just works" and is very impressive at installing and configuring your system.
4. Yes. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more
about how Linux works and anyone who wants a "custom tailored" OS. Came to Gentoo after doing Linux From Scratch (LFS) a few times. Now *that* is where you learn!
5. Used Gentoo for three years. Ran it on the same machine for over two years - a mixture of stable and unstable packages.

[happysmileman]

1. Curiosity mainly, and wanted to see whether the extra effort was worth the speed increase, it was
2. Yes, never looked back once I got KDE working
3. Gentoo is better for me, Ubuntu is better for most people I'd say, but for tech-savvy people or people interested in speed or learning
4. Yes, but not to most people, I'd never give my friends Gentoo, they'd get Ubuntu from me
5. Since August, but only as my main OS since September

[gasparov]

1) I'd liked the out-of-the box idea
2)YES
3)Ubuntu is fast to mantain and has the best community but is damn buggy (no hibernate on my laptop and no virtual consoles, the related bug was opened in october).However is very good for new ubuntu users
4)Generally I don't do that with any distro
5) since 2006

[trimeta]

1. N/A; Gentoo was my first distro (aside from an abortive experiment with Red Hat back in 2002) and I still use it.
2. Yes
3. Gentoo is a "fun" distro to run; I enjoy tweaking it and trying carefully to install only the packages and dependencies I want. It's also a bit easier to modify packages. For example, if I want a new version of something, I usually just need to find the ebuild, rename it, and modify a few settings. Or if someone posts a patch, I can easily modify the ebuild to incorperate it. I also like the rolling update system, at least on a primary machine; I don't want to have to wait for the next KDE release before I get my new version of Firefox or the kernel.
That said, I don't know if it would remain fun to run Gentoo on more than one system, or on production servers where downtime means more than "oops, switch to a different computer for a while." For this reason, I've got Ubuntu Server on my servers, and have been very happy with it; I need only log in every few days and update && upgrade to make sure everything's working. I use Ubuntu as my "fire & forget" distro, and Gentoo when I want a more hands-on experience.
4. Frankly, I've stopped recommending Gentoo to all but the more technical of my friends. Getting a Gentoo system running for the first time without any previous experience with the distro is probably going to require help, either from a friend or the IRC channel, and I only recommend Gentoo to friends I think I can probably coach through the process. For everyone else, there's Ubuntu.
5. I've been using Gentoo since 2004.

[Anubis]

I used Gentoo when it first came out, with the Livecd with UT2002 on it, still have the disk. I did not leave Gentoo until Ubuntu came out, and have been with Gentoo ever since.

The differences between the two are strictly in peoples heads. They are both Linux Oses with different ways of doing the same thing. Most just use Gentoo because they like to gloat over other users. Once you get past that juvenile factor, your ready to just get to work, without staring at your screen watching Gnome compile. This is such a tired comparison.

And please stop with this "Ubuntu has bloat" nonsense. Define "bloat"? If bloat is applications you don't want or use installed, guess what? Don't install them? Install from the server cd and then pull down only what you want to use. But comparing apples to oranges is so silly, its all fruit from the same garden.