Anyone still using Gentoo?

[Kadarin]

My second desktop pc here is currently running a copy of Vista Home Premium, but I'm not doing a whole lot with the machine currently, so I'm debating wiping it and installing some distro of linux for general purpose use. About six years ago I was using Gentoo for the purpose of learning more about linux, but since the advent of Ubuntu it seems to have fallen out of favor. However, I remember it looking and working well so long as you get past the idea that you have to compile everything yourself every time you want to update anything or install new software.

Good idea? Bad idea? Ugly idea?

 

[lxskllr]

Ugly idea. I don't see the point unless you want it as a hobby(time killer). I'd stick with something prebuilt if you just want something that works.

 

[xSauronx]

If you want to learn, Id skip gentoo and go with Debian or Fedora. Package management is easy but they wont babysit you the way Ubuntu does. If you want to learn for the sake of work experience or some such, then Debian or CentOS (instead of fedora)

 

[Nothinman]

Gentoo was only ever in favor with a few vocal and misguided few. There is virtually zero point in compiling anything at all these days. The whole "optimized for your system" crap is BS. Gentoo does give a little more flexibility in dependencies with USE flags, but the tradeoff isn't anywhere near worth it.

 

[Kadarin]

Gentoo was only ever in favor with a few vocal and misguided few. There is virtually zero point in compiling anything at all these days. The whole "optimized for your system" crap is BS. Gentoo does give a little more flexibility in dependencies with USE flags, but the tradeoff isn't anywhere near worth it.

I'm tending to agree with this. I think what I will do is look at the big name distros out now, including Mint, Mandriva, and CentOS (useful for work experience) and see what I can make of them.

 

[Praetor]

Gentoo was only ever in favor with a few vocal and misguided few. There is virtually zero point in compiling anything at all these days. The whole "optimized for your system" crap is BS. Gentoo does give a little more flexibility in dependencies with USE flags, but the tradeoff isn't anywhere near worth it.

I've never really thought of myself as "misguided" for using Gentoo before, but thanks for clearing that up.

 

[xSauronx]

I've never really thought of myself as "misguided" for using Gentoo before, but thanks for clearing that up.

It was long ago known that bothering with compiling everything was a waste of time. My understanding is that at first, Gentoo was using a couple of flags on most things that actually did speed things up...but which for whatever reason nobody else had been using. After that...everyone started using them, so with Gentoo you got the benefit of a distro without anything special going for it and some extra headache in package management and installation.

 

[Kadarin]

The other benefit to Gentoo was that you got to solve issues that come up by doing research on various forums and whatnot, and in the process get to learn a few things about how it works under the hood. Unfortunately, the things you learn tended to be Gentoo-specific, not applying to any other distro. It was relatively easy to customize it to run only what software you wanted, and to have the specific look and feel you wanted, however.

 

[Nothinman]

The other benefit to Gentoo was that you got to solve issues that come up by doing research on various forums and whatnot, and in the process get to learn a few things about how it works under the hood. Unfortunately, the things you learn tended to be Gentoo-specific, not applying to any other distro. It was relatively easy to customize it to run only what software you wanted, and to have the specific look and feel you wanted, however.

All of that is true of any distro.

 

[d4mo]

I still use Gentoo on my server. It was my first distro and still my favorite. If you want to learn, it is easily one of your best choices(Slackware would be another or LFS if you are hardcore).

I'm still a member of the gentoo forums, but I keep hearing that Gentoo as a distro is dying. It's sad really.

 

[silverpig]

It's been a long time since I've used gentoo, and I've since used ubuntu extensively and now use OSX, but I remember gentoo having some redeeming qualities. I did do the full on stage1 compile everything install and got it to work, but on subsequent installs, just went stage3 and enjoyed portage.

The benefits of gentoo: USE flags, portage (I liked it better than apt, but that could have been because I was used to it), gentoo forums (probably the most helpful forums I've ever been on)

Really though, the "hassle" argument is bs. If you're willing to put up with the hassle of building a PC and installing/learning linux as opposed to buying a pre-built Dell, then the "hassle" of substituting gentoo isn't much of an additional burden.

 

[Gamingphreek]

I'm tending to agree with this. I think what I will do is look at the big name distros out now, including Mint, Mandriva, and CentOS (useful for work experience) and see what I can make of them.

Please stay away from Mint - especially given that it is certainly not a major distro. The goals of mint are really quite pointless - its just Debian->Ubuntu with a TON of stuff pre-installed.

Like Nothinman said, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and what not are where you should look. That being said, I haven't used it, but Slackware and ArchLinux are both more "advanced" (Whatever that means) distros that you could try.

-Kevin

 

[Gamingphreek]

It's been a long time since I've used gentoo, and I've since used ubuntu extensively and now use OSX, but I remember gentoo having some redeeming qualities. I did do the full on stage1 compile everything install and got it to work, but on subsequent installs, just went stage3 and enjoyed portage.

The benefits of gentoo: USE flags, portage (I liked it better than apt, but that could have been because I was used to it), gentoo forums (probably the most helpful forums I've ever been on)

Really though, the "hassle" argument is bs. If you're willing to put up with the hassle of building a PC and installing/learning linux as opposed to buying a pre-built Dell, then the "hassle" of substituting gentoo isn't much of an additional burden.

Clearly you have never been to the Ubuntu Forums if you think the Gentoo forums are some of the best out there.

There is a LOT more hassle in having to compile every piece of software from source than there is just building a new computer. You build a computer 1x. Every time you want to install something on your computer, you need to compile it from source - big difference!

-Kevin

 

[Nothinman]

It's been a long time since I've used gentoo, and I've since used ubuntu extensively and now use OSX, but I remember gentoo having some redeeming qualities. I did do the full on stage1 compile everything install and got it to work, but on subsequent installs, just went stage3 and enjoyed portage.

The benefits of gentoo: USE flags, portage (I liked it better than apt, but that could have been because I was used to it), gentoo forums (probably the most helpful forums I've ever been on)

Maybe it's changed since, but the last time I looked portage didn't check dependencies on remove which is insanely stupid and a more than epic fail for a package manager.

Really though, the "hassle" argument is bs. If you're willing to put up with the hassle of building a PC and installing/learning linux as opposed to buying a pre-built Dell, then the "hassle" of substituting gentoo isn't much of an additional burden.

Well, I'm not willing to go through the hassle of building a PC these days even though I'm still capable of doing so. But I'm more than willing to put Debian on pretty much anything I have to use.

 

[lxskllr]

Clearly you have never been to the Ubuntu Forums if you think the Gentoo forums are some of the best out there.

I'm not familiar with the Gentoo forums, but Ubuntu's are just about unusable. People there ask the same questions over and over, and none of them appear to be familiar with Google. There's too much noise on the Ubuntu forums. I ask my questions here, and while we may not have the huge number of eyes Ubuntu has, I always get a useful answer.

 

[Kadarin]

As it turns out, I installed Mint. The reason is twofold: I wanted to see what the most polished distro currently looks like; would it detect my hardware, how easy is it to install applications, can I run Windows apps in Wine, and so forth. Secondly, I am also going to install it on a system that a friend of mine has, and she plans to use that system as a separate box that her teenage daughters use to access the web, do email, IM, and other assorted junk that teenage girls do on the web.

At some point I might wipe it and go with a different distro, but so far I'm liking what I see. I will want to do CentOS at some point, as understanding how it handles package management will help with the occasional case for my work.

Overall, given my experiences over the last several days I'm pretty impressed with the current state of Linux.

 

[xSauronx]

I'm not familiar with the Gentoo forums, but Ubuntu's are just about unusable. People there ask the same questions over and over, and none of them appear to be familiar with Google. There's too much noise on the Ubuntu forums. I ask my questions here, and while we may not have the huge number of eyes Ubuntu has, I always get a useful answer.

I agree, theres a tremendous amount of noise on Ubuntu's forums. For common problems, theres usually already a wiki, faq or some other established help page, for common problems without a solution there are dozens of unanswered threads.

I prefer getting help here or from debian forums, or searching for a ubuntu problem as its a debian problem since theres usually less crap to filter through.

That being said, there is a lot of good info on the ubuntu forums and lots of helpful people and answers. Getting attention there can be tricky, sometimes, and impossible for really oddball stuff.

You can run a few distros at once, just virtualize (another thread entirely, perhaps) and run CentOS or something inside of Mint in a virtual machine and experiment/learn that way.

 

[silverpig]

Clearly you have never been to the Ubuntu Forums if you think the Gentoo forums are some of the best out there.

There is a LOT more hassle in having to compile every piece of software from source than there is just building a new computer. You build a computer 1x. Every time you want to install something on your computer, you need to compile it from source - big difference!

-Kevin

I have been to the ubuntu forums. I found that ubuntu had too much of a "n00b" reputation, and thus the forums were flooded with repeat threads of "where is my programs???" type level. Then, the normal users would get annoyed and rip on anyone who asked a question which was below them.

The reason I liked the gentoo forums is because I don't think I ever had to create a thread for help there. I just searched the forums for the problem I had and always found my answer, even if it was a problem I just encountered with a new version release or update.

Building a computer (properly) takes probably 2 hours. That includes unboxing, screwing in the mobo, testing, bootup and OS load. Yeah you might be an all star and can get it done in 1h15 but it's not a trivial process. Compiling something from source with gentoo is MUCH simpler

emerge bitchx

and you let it go for 2-3 minutes. Yeah it takes longer than apt, but it's not hard and requires no more work on your part.

 

[Gamingphreek]

I have been to the ubuntu forums. I found that ubuntu had too much of a "n00b" reputation, and thus the forums were flooded with repeat threads of "where is my programs???" type level. Then, the normal users would get annoyed and rip on anyone who asked a question which was below them.

The reason I liked the gentoo forums is because I don't think I ever had to create a thread for help there. I just searched the forums for the problem I had and always found my answer, even if it was a problem I just encountered with a new version release or update.

Building a computer (properly) takes probably 2 hours. That includes unboxing, screwing in the mobo, testing, bootup and OS load. Yeah you might be an all star and can get it done in 1h15 but it's not a trivial process. Compiling something from source with gentoo is MUCH simpler

emerge bitchx

and you let it go for 2-3 minutes. Yeah it takes longer than apt, but it's not hard and requires no more work on your part.

Yea 2-3 minutes IF you have all the dependencies met AND have all the build libraries that are needed for that particular install. Should you be missing one or more, you have to then grab each of those....

Building a computer is not doing the same thing over and over again. You assemble it a grand total of 1 time. When you compile all your applications from source its the same painful process over and over and over - and like I said, that is in the event that you have all the necessary dependencies met.

I can see what everyone means about the Ubuntu forums and am inclined to agree. At the same time, if you post a question, generally, it gets answered very quickly.

-Kevin

 

[xcript]

I've been running Gentoo on my desktop for the past six years and am still happy with it.

arkham ~ # head -n1 /var/log/emerge.log
1045273195: Started emerge on: Feb 15, 2003 01:39:55

To be honest, though, I'd probably switch to Debian if my drive suddenly failed or something.

 

[insect9]

I've been running Arch for quite some time and am very happy with it. I also run Debian.

I tried Gentoo way back in the day and found that compiling everything is both pointless and a pain in the ass.

 

[silverpig]

Yea 2-3 minutes IF you have all the dependencies met AND have all the build libraries that are needed for that particular install. Should you be missing one or more, you have to then grab each of those....

Building a computer is not doing the same thing over and over again. You assemble it a grand total of 1 time. When you compile all your applications from source its the same painful process over and over and over - and like I said, that is in the event that you have all the necessary dependencies met.

I can see what everyone means about the Ubuntu forums and am inclined to agree. At the same time, if you post a question, generally, it gets answered very quickly.

-Kevin

Most of the dependencies are already included from previous installs. It is like building a computer. Yes you need a mobo in order to install a CPU, but if you've already got a graphics card in there, then you already have the mobo too.

The first day or two you end up compiling a lot of stuff, but after that it's 99% of the time just one-offs.

 

[MGMorden]

I used it for years, but in the end it just proved to be easier to keep a Debian based system up and running for me. Right now my system is running Ubuntu 9.10, but I've used Mint on it a lot recently too.

All in all for a desktop system they're just more polished.

 

[HappyCracker]

I still use it and enjoy it. The way the system feels from the start is more natural to me; this could be because I never got used to anything else. I won't argue that the constant compiling is a bit obtuse in the name of package optimization, but most things aren't a bother. Firefox takes some time, Chromium was longer, and OpenOffice wins in the time arena. I like Portage as a package manager, despite some of its shortcomings.

 

[Nothinman]

I like Portage as a package manager, despite some of its shortcomings.

Like the fact that it doesn't check dependencies on package removal? I don't know how anything with such a glaring hole can be called a package manager.