My love/hate relationship with Gentoo...

...or Random Confessions from a Linux N00b Aficionado

I love Linux. I can't count the number of times I've installed various distros for various uses from running Unreal and Neverwinter Nights game servers to toying with Blender3D modeling (I still major suk at that, but I find it very cool - and yes, I know there is a version for Windows, but where's the fun in that? ).

My current [masochistic] favorite is Gentoo. I love the idea of having the absolute leanest OS installation possible with a small footprint GUI (xfce, fluxbox, etc.) that provides only the apps and functionality I need. Still, I *really* struggle getting it all set up. Even with the extensive documentation offered at the Gentoo website, I end up banging my head against hardware driver setup and application/dependency issues (don't even get me started on getting the x-windows configuration right), not to mention agonizing over all the compiler options for the kernel.

I've used various versions of Ubuntu, SUSE, RedHat, etc., but, while they installed easily enough (usually), I ended up feeling like it just came with too much stuff in the way of graphical elements, applications and code libraries that I really didn't need. That's why I'm so enamored with Gentoo - nothing more than what I absolutely need.....of course the problem is figuring out exactly what I *do* need to make everything work.

I'm at the point where I don't need a "training wheels" distro to spark my interest in Linux. I'm already hooked. I'm now in that sort of limbo between being able to do what I need to do using a LiveCD and being proficient enough to make the OS truly work for me.

Gaming? I'll dual-boot Windows for that as well as the various Windows programming that I do. Heck, I may even settle for VMWare for the latter (I'll be posting some concerns about VMWare in another thread). Aside from that, I just can't see how anyone wouldn't just love the idea of a community-driven, completely and totally customizable, secure and stable OS, even if it does involve a bit of a learning curve.

Any other Gentoo or other small footprint Linux OS users out there care to provide some insight into their own experiences and tips for making the most sense of it all?

 

Gentoo is excellent for those who know how to use it. More efficient than Windows, more customizable, very stable, and it's free.

 

I don't know if Gentoo is such a good distro anymore. When I gave it a shot, I found that lot of the documentation was out-of-date or incorrect, and many times, I ended up visiting the IRC channel to discover this after a couple of hours of head-banging because I thought I'd messed up when following the instructions in the documentation.

Things such as a WiFi management had such poor support that I just couldn't put up with it anymore. For example, KNetworkManager didn't even have a stable version in Portage.

In the end, I decided to go back to Kubuntu. Before switching back, I timed how long it took for Gentoo to load - 35 seconds. And how long did it take for Kubuntu to load? 35 seconds as well. That kind of killed my faith in the "compiled makes it faster" idea that drives a lot of Gentoo users.

That said, I saved some of the config files, such as make.conf, (kernel) .config, and xorg.conf, so if I ever want to try Gentoo again, I can get back to the same point I was within an hour or two.

 

Nothing preventing you from compiling your own kernel on Ubuntu, either. I compile a custom kernel for my desktop machine since I have 5GB of RAM in a 32bit system, so I need PAE enabled, but I don't want Xen enabled since NVidia's drivers don't deal well with that. Works quite well with the custom kernel and the rest of it being standard Kubuntu.

 

I've used gentoo for about 6 years now and it is exactly what I want for my server machines. I don't run it on my laptop.

Once gentoo is configured the way you like, it *is* fast, but you likely won't see any difference in boot times. Most of the time spent booting is waiting for HW to initialize, DHCP leases etc. Most init systems use bash under the hood anyway which is already slow as molasses.

Gentoo has had it's ups and downs over the years. Every so often a major architecture change (like xorg) can cause big upgrade headaches (not unlike any other distro), but the forums, users and documentation are, or at least have been, top-notch.

People often associate gentoo with 'ricers' and speed-freaks, but gentoo won't make your system XX% faster because everything is compiled with -O9 or whatever. What gentoo does is make your system work exactly the way *you* want it to. All that flexibility can be tough in the beginning, but in my opinion it is worth it.

There are some good things still being done within gentoo, so I'd recommend having another look if you like tweaking and getting the most from your system. What it won't do for you is give you all kinds of 'user-friendliness' out of the box, like auto-mounting of USB keys etc. (depending on desktop environment of course)