gentoo? good for newbie?

[schunn99]

hey all,
I am kind of new to linux and I am researching distros. Currently, I have downloaded slackware 10.1, unbuntu 4.10, gentoo 2005.0 x86 universal and mandrake 10. have played with mandrake and I didn't like it.

Is gentoo good for a newbie to linux? is it hard to install etc?

thanks,
schunn99

[Icarus]

Gentoo takes some work to install, but if you follow their installation handbook it's pretty simple as the handbook is very good

Another thing about Gentoo is that it doesn't do much for you besides install the packages, it's really up to you to set things up...but again they have guides that are very useful for that

If you want to learn Linux and learn it quick, Gentoo is great. If you just want to install and use Linux, go with something else.

[jrbishop79]

Gento does take some post install work to get things working, and there are some annoying issues with certain products like open office working the way they're supposed to. I never did get my printer working.

On the upside I loved portage/emerge. it was great to type 'emerge whatever' and have it install it without complaining.

so I wouldn't recommend it to a new linux discoverer....

[XiaoKJ]

If you are able to read and think at the same time, and follow the routes correctly, you can live with gentoo. and you won't want to switch if you can.

anyway, its a very nice distro. When I tried debian, which is far after I've used gentoo, I find that I had trouble switching. This is the power of distros on people.

[blackbelt_jones]

Who knows? I found it gave me problems, but fortunately, you are not me.

Me? I'm sort of a permanent intermediate newbie. I am not a technical person by nature, and I'm a horribly slow study, but over a couple of years, I've gotten to the point where Linux on the desktop is my first choice for just about everything that I would have used Windows for a few years ago, plus I''ve learned a few simple BASH tricks and I'm starting to learn more.

If a distro doesn't work well for me, it probably has as much to do with my limitations as the limitations of the software. Nothing wrong with that. As a human being, I'm always going to have limitations, so if something doesn't work for me, I feel no need to feel like a failure, or to badmouth the distro. (Though I sometimes like to poke fun at the Ubuntu craze.) Nor do I feel the need to give the distro "a fair chance". I can always try it again when I have more knowledge. I just jump to something else before I get the chance to become frustrated.

Jumping around like this doesn't give you a lot of depth of Linux knowledge, but it does give you a considerable breadth. I've tried something like a dozen distros, and the one I keep coming back to, and have apparently settled on for the time being, is Debian Sarge. For a while, I evangelized in here about how Sarge is a great newbie distro, and I was roundly poo-pooed from all sides. So I gave it up.

Apparently, its just a good match for my hardware and personality. SuSE, Ubuntu and Mepis (all supposedly good "newbie" distros) seemed crazy to me, but apparently they have worked well for others. I guess it takes all kinds.

If you have it in your head to try Gentoo, go for it, and if it doesn't work for you, try something else. At these prices, you can afford to experiment.

[loopback48]

Much like Blackbelt, I too consider myself a permanent intermediate newbie. But if you want my opinion, Gentoo is not the way to go. After years of playing with several distro I had the chance to install a Gentoo based distro -Vidalinux http://desktop.vidalinux.com/. My opinion? If this is what Gentoo is all about, you can keep it. Even with VidaLinux to do most of the dirty work, it took DAYS! to install/download anything. And I do mean DAY or HOURS!!! Oh, the fans of this distro will tell you how 'Optimized' it is but for my money and to say noting of my time, it just flat-out is not worth it.

Did I see a difference in speed? Not at all. So I thought: if this is what's in store for me everytime I install a package, it's not worth it. I don't know, maybe you will see it differently.

Working with linux since '99 I've come to believe in the Debian way. Stick to a Debian based distro. Many to use and play with: Mepis, Knopix, DSL, Ubuntu (my distro of choice), Xandros, the list goes on. Nothing like a debian based system as far as I'm concerned.

While I'm at it, try downloading the debian sarge net-install. One CD and the rest comes from the network. Just did it and it's looking good. Much work to do but it's more that just a start. Of course there's Ubuntu. What can I say but, Ubuntu! Give that one a shot. You'll love it.

[timothykaine]

I think if you have to ask then the answer is it is probably going to be above your head. Start slow, and work your way up to those more difficult distributions. If you didnt like Slackware, you more than likely will not like Gentoo.

[LNXchd]

I am very green when it comes to linux. I was searching for a good distro to start using. I read some threads and decided to try out Debian "sarge". This has so far been the easiest for me. Easily configured, and to install and remove applications is quite simple. Installed Deb, fluxbox, chat client, firefox, etc. etc., using the apt-get install command from a terminal, and thats all she wrote. I installed only what I wanted, and needed; nothing more. Being new with the CLI; I chose fluxbox as my WM, and use the terminals religiously. Forces me to learn the basic commands. If you want to learn about linux this would be a decent way to start. Good Luck and Enjoy!

[blackbelt_jones]

Wow, I agree completely. I think Sarge is a great place to start , especially if you have broadband and can use the debian-installer to get it off the net:

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

You'll need to know what the manufacturer of your video card, and a little bit about your monitor (e.g. Horizontal refresh rate)

[Pafnoutios]

I use gentoo.
I love gentoo.
I would not recommend gentoo for a newbie.
I spent 2 years playing with Redhat before I switched to gentoo.
Try a distribution with a graphical installer, and then play around with the text configuration files (after backing backups). When you're comfortable with the text configuration files and commands (fstab, mount, fdisk, xorg.conf OR XF86Config, man, ln, ...) then I would reccomend gentoo.
Yes, compiling firefox, openoffice, KDE, and other big packages from source take A LOT of time.

[schunn99]

Pafnoutios,
thanks for the info, I know a little of configuration and editing of .config files but then again that is one of the reasons I am switching to linux, is that I can configure anything and everything, something just you can't do with windows.

to everyone else, thanks for the info, I do want to be able to chose everything that is installed on my linux box. So I will try debian sarge. Is debian, gui install or text install?

can anyone suggest a good linux book to help me learn?

thanks all,
schunn99

[LNXchd]

I believe there is the well known Linux Bible...might be of some use. Can be found online, I know they have it at Border's. Not sure where else may have it. Try Googling for book sources. Good Luck!

found it here:

Linux Bible

As far as the GUI for installation it has no gui but it is very easy to understand and use, none the less.