My experience with Gentoo

So far, my experience with Gentoo has been outstanding. Sure the installation took a while, but, instead of finding this package to enable this and that package for something else, it was all compiled into the programs as they installed (USE flags), which has been quite a relief.

Instead of having to enable repositories and then install packages, when I was (finally) presented with a gnome desktop, mp3, dvd, wincodecs, truetype font, etc. all worked. Yes, I must say, compiling gnome with all of the default deskop USE flags took quite some time. But after hours of command line work, I was ready for a little break.

Now this may or may not be superior to how things went in Ubuntu. I still like Ubuntu, mind you. Gentoo's just different, that's all. And in a way that I like.

Probably what has attracted me most to Gentoo is their excellent documentation. Before installing, I printed out the necessary manuals to have them handy. I think that was part of the reason things went so well for me.

And this thing is smoking fast, too. The desktop is extremely responsive.

If you like Ubuntu and you're willing to learn a good bit more about Linux in general and want to explore something different, in a real good way, then I'd encourage you to try Gentoo.

Gentoo is wonderful for servers. Gentoo sucks for desktops due to the 'takes forever to compile the newest KDE' syndrome. I gave up on Gentoo on my desktop about a month ago when I discovered Feisty.

So, now that you have a new gentoo setup, do you have all the time required to troubleshoot it when it breaks? Wait until you get a baselayout breakage.. =)

In my experience, I have found no evidence that Gentoo is any faster than Ubuntu. If this is your case, then you didn't/don't have Ubuntu set up right (how is that possible?). It's no more responsive than anything else.

Also, don't encourage people to try Gentoo unless you warn them about the amount of time needed to invest into it. It's only fair to know that you won't have a running desktop until, at minimum, 10 hours (if you have a blazing fast computer) after you start the install process.

Ateo said: Gentoo is wonderful for servers. Gentoo sucks for desktops due to the 'takes forever to compile the newest KDE' syndrome. I gave up on Gentoo on my desktop about a month ago when I discovered Feisty.

Gnome took quite a while to compile, too.

So, now that you have a new gentoo setup, do you have all the time required to troubleshoot it when it breaks? Wait until you get a baselayout breakage.. =)

Sure. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there. =D

EDIT: Yeah, folks. The install time is HUGE. Well, to get to something like Gnome or KDE, at least. You're at a command prompt within a couple of hours. It took me around 13 hours to get to a desktop environment.

Here is my experience:

My first Linux experience involved Ubuntu. I needed a sound linux distro that was easy to setup and stable to use and was friendly with the newer features of laptops where I was installing it on. After a bunch of reading, I got Ubuntu Dapper and installed it flawlessly. It ran smooth and as a newbie to the scene, I thought it was great. I eventually sold that laptop for an upgrade. I never got to really feel out the features and I had no baseline to compare anything....I just loved it. I LOVED the look of it, it was great.

A year went by and I again delved into the Linus distro business. This time with a bleeding egde laptop, I chose openSuse. Again, installed flawlessly and recognized all my hardware. The only frustrating part was getting wireless working; often it would recognize the essid network and try to connect but never be able to. But that happened rarely (but at the most pressing times) which only exacerbated the sitution. I fell in love and used it for a good 2 months. I got XGL and Beryl on it and was truly in love again (although it never looked as good as ubuntu)....Eventually it slowed down a bit and I needed a FASTER distro....

Next I went with Gentoo. The manual was great, the hardest part for me was the partiitoning since Acer (my laptop manufacturer) totally messed up the partition on the HDD. I eventually got through it and after an entire weekend of installing gnome (shoulda chose XFCE :() ) I got it working....It was FAST! 25 second boot time and everything was amazingly responsive. got XGL + Beryl working on it. But after that point, no games worked due to crappy fglrx drivers...(although I do recall games working on Opensuse with xgl)...this wouldn't do since I developed games with openGL on linux. Plus, it required a TON of attention for maintenance, recompiling kernel+all builds for each software i needed was an utter pain and I realized it would be impossible to do so during school...so I said good by after a week...but that was one NICE distro...

So now I'm stuck, I want a fast distro, handling all the newer hardware but requires little maintenence....I think my next step is Xubuntu, what do ya'll think?

dj_unforgetable said:

So now I'm stuck, I want a fast distro, handling all the newer hardware but requires little maintenence....I think my next step is Xubuntu, what do ya'll think?

Xubuntu is not that fast either. Rather try Fluxbuntu or try Sabayon mini Edition (not dvd) if you liked Gentoo

Nah, the reason I wanted xubuntu was cause beryl + xgl work with xfce. Fluxbox is lightweight I understand, but doesn't serve my needs.

Any other opinions? Right now, I'm ready to get xubuntu on my machine, but I can be persuaded :-)

And btw, xubuntu's gotta be fast...atleast faster than ubuntu w/ gnome or kde.

dj_unforgetable said:

And btw, xubuntu's gotta be fast...atleast faster than ubuntu w/ gnome or kde.

Xubuntu is not that fast. Give Sabayon a try, everything should work out of the box, better than Ubuntu derivatives.

dj_unforgetable said:

So now I'm stuck, I want a fast distro, handling all the newer hardware but requires little maintenence....I think my next step is Xubuntu, what do ya'll think?

Archlinux is what u want. Everything is compiled for i686 and it's the faster distro I ever seen. Yes,faster than gentoo (my gentoo was compiled with p4 cflags)...

However archlinux has an amazing packet manager...read about it. www.archlinux.org

I'll second the Archlinux recommendation. it's faster than Ubuntu, and not quite as painful as Gentoo; it's a nice middle ground, but you sacrifice no speed.

I'm not one for 'thin' desktops. I like everything to be installed. that's why i think i like kde so much. everything i need all packed into the desktop. don't get me wrong, there are some programs that leave a lot to be desired (but I appreciate nonetheless) like Krita vs Gimp. Gimp wins it for me but Krita just needs more development but it does look quite promising. It even has the layout of Photoshop...