On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo. > > After a few weeks of effort, I've just gone live with my very own Gentoo > system. :-) > > The last stage was copying most of my files over from my old box, which > involved a significant degree of screwing the disk drives. > > It is such a relief to say goodbye to my ancient Debian system, which no > longer had a functioning package system. Also, my ten year old hardware > was feeling ever more underpowered as time went by. > > Installing and configuring Gentoo was significantly easier than Debian, > even though it took about the same amount of time. The approach "insert > the DVD, press the button, and everything will work OK" is fine, until > something _doesn't_ work OK; then you've got several hours (or days) of > tedious searching for the answer. By contrast, with Gentoo's 41 pages > of detailed instructions, you really can't go far wrong. And at the end > of it, there's further detailed documentation to get X and window > manager etc. set up. > > I think there's really only two ways to install Linux: you either go the > Ubuntu route, where everything's done for you and you accept somebody > else's defaults, or you go with Gentoo, where you do everything > yourself. I think anything in the middle, like Debian, just leads to > confusion and uncertainty. I don't know where Fedora and SuSE fit into > all this. > > Anyhow, I'm now up and running, with some installation and config still > to do: things like how to get British English and German keyboard > layouts in XFCE, how to make it's terminal have a black background and > things like that. I also need to find a decent PDF viewer, and a decent > jpeg viewer. > > So, thanks for all the help, everybody! > > -- > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). > > Gentoo has it's places, but at the end of the day, I just want my desktop system to work with little effort on my part. And be consistent. Ubuntu gives me that on a desktop -- well, it did, until they decided to switch to Unity. But that's another topic... For everything else (re: servers), there's Gentoo :) I run a Gentoo VPS for a website. I love the flexibility of Gentoo, the speed, the nothingness you start with and have to mold it together like you would an artist with a block of clay.
