Gentoo is one of the distributions I have tried. Richard has it just about right.
I learned a lot installing it because, as Richard says, you do everything by hand and command line, although the install document does step you through it, I had it open on an alternative console while I entered the commands on the main console. The editor you use (at least in v1.2) is nano, which is some sort of pico derivative (no vi), but it's easy enough to figure out for the basic editing you need to do. If you are seriously thinking of using it, and have a modem connection to the internet, you will want to cache (at least portions) of the portage tree locally. It took me several days to (maybe it was actually a week because of all the restarts due to broken connections) do the downloads/install. Finally, I have not actually been able to get it up and running without any issues because somehow when I compiled the new kernel I didn't include DEVFS (according to the error message) which it claims is required (please do not ask me what that is or how you turn it on or off). I also created a swap partition, an ext2fs boot partition and an XFS root partition. I can see the swap and root partitions when I boot but not the boot partition, so I can't go back to the old kernel or supply a new one. I have not completely given up on getting that machine working properly yet, and even if I don't, I achieved my learning objectives anyway, i.e. to become familiar with the kernel compilation interface. Brendan >>>> Subject: >>>> Re: [SLUG] Red Hat 8.0 (First Impressions) >>>> From: >>>> Richard Neal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>> Date: >>>> 04 Oct 2002 00:08:10 +1000 >>>> To: >>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> >>>> >>>>Yeah Ive run Gentoo and to answer a few questions >>>> >>>>1. its a bitch to install it makes Debian look like an installers dream >>>>2. I didn't get that much of a speed increase ( definitely not 2 x ) and >>>>stability was just about the same as any decent distro. >>>>3. 20% more speed in general and about 40% on boot (yeah Gentoo is one >>>>wicked setup if you hate long boots) >>>>4. you need broadband its a real bandwidth hog and very addictive when >>>>it comes to keeping up to date. >>>>5 lots of spare time to waste on fine tunning the install >>>>6. the only major plus is when you have finished installing this beast >>>>everything else seems pathetically easy and your knowledge of were >>>>everything is is way above normal. The user will have to manually do >>>>just about everything, right from partitioning the hardisk to setting up >>>>network files and setting up X; if your no good with vim or emacs your >>>>screwed. >>>>7. if you one of those people who like to have the newest software and >>>>it has to be source and anything more than 3 days old is a Dinosaur then >>>>Gentoo is for you, </sarcasm>ooh yeah and you built your own computer >>>>piece by piece and soldered in those little Night Rider style LED's by >>>>hand</sarcasm>. >>>> >>>>Personaly I gave up on it after a while and swapped back to >>>>Mandrake/Debian .. Life is just too short for me and Gentoo. >>>> >>>>On Thu, 2002-10-03 at 23:35, James Gregory wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>>Incidently, I was reading a piece of... literature about the wonders of >>>>>gentoo. The writer claimed that compiling all his software with >>>>>aggressive optimization flags made his computer run about twice as fast >>>>>and use half the memory. Unfortunately my knowledge of compilers is >>>>>about 20 years old so I don't have a way to evaluate if it's >>>>>optimization that's doing that. But I'm interested - is anyone here >>>>>running gentoo? does it live up to the astonishing things I've heard >>>>>about it? >>>>> >>>>>James. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
