on an acer laptop.....

Just because I fancied a change and craved a 2.6.x kernel, I decided to run with Gentoo instead of my usual Slackware install. Okay, different distro so things were never going to go as smoothly but i kinda like that anyway.

3 freakin DAYS later it finally boots to kde. 3 DAYS? What on earth was it doing? KDE alone took over 12 hours to churn 87 packages through emerge.

Slack normally goes on in under an hour albeit with a 2.4.26 kernel but that is time enough to have sound, X, Gnome & KDE all humming nicely.

emerge was cool...network updated files were cool (no problems downloading after editing out the IPv6 mirrors lmao)

I know that Gentoo 2005.0 is out shortly with a graphical installer...maybe that'll shave a few days off the install time...lolololol

A shame really as I wanted to run a new distro and Gentoo looked good but seriously why would anyone bother?

Compiling specifically for a system has a certain charm, but it's too personal to even try to begin a rational discussion about it. What Gentoo has going for itself is that it stands out. Most distro's are too much alike these days.

I prefer precompiled Debian packages . Why Debian? Dunno, it's what I got first and I like it.

Bit more reading would have saved you better than a couple of days of that.
There are *BINARY* downloads available for X and the desktops.
Pretty well optimized too, although I preferred to optimize for my specific hardware.

Welcome to the "learning opportunities" Gentoo offers.

Compiling your entire system from source code. If you read the site you'd have known that.

>> 3 freakin DAYS later it finally boots to kde. 3 DAYS? <<

Yes, it can take some time if you do it that way - however, to have a brief look around Gentoo it is possible to do it in around 3 hours with a reasonable proccessor if you do a stage 3 from the universal live cd, portage snapshot from the cd, quick kernel compile etc, etc .... then post-install using the pacakges cd something like (for a light-weight kde):

# mount /mnt/cdrom
# export PKGDIR="/mnt/cdrom"
# emerge --usepkg kdelibs arts kdebase kdeartwork

Admitedly, it's more inflexible from this starting point, but it does give you a quick look , without a lengthy install time

I read the install docs on gentoo.org several times and I didn't notice that. U sure it's written there in the only bit any one trying to install would actually read?

One of my pet hates is when important and unguessable information is buried in a manual with no external reference to it. I mean, if I don't know that I need to know about binary installs then how am i supposed to know that i need to know? And why isn't it the default mode? All I was doing was typing what was in the gentoo install file ;-(

To expand on my earlier theme, it only took 35 odd minutes to get slack 10.0 on with 2.4.26. Another half an hour and 2.6.10 was on with all its bells and whistles including Centrino wireless support. Gentoo's hardware optimising method needs to speed my box up by an awful lot of milliseconds to account for the extra 70 hours it takes to do it. lmao.

I'll give it another shot when 2004.0 comes out as it looks good but I'll set aside a wekend to do it :-)

Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Chapter 2, Choosing the Right Installation Medium

"A stage1 is used when you want to bootstrap and build the entire system from scratch."

"Suitable for powerusers that know what they are doing"
"Takes a long time to finish the installation"
"If you don't intend to tweak the settings, it is a waste of time"

"A stage2 is used for building the entire system from a bootstrapped "semi-compiled" state."

"A stage3 installation contains a basic Gentoo Linux system that has been built for you."

"Stage3 is also required if you want to install Gentoo using prebuilt packages..."

It is assumed that you know what the word 'build' means in a Linux context.

Oh, now, we all know how confusing this part is...

"Suitable for powerusers that know what they are doing"



and I guess some people think they're lying about this part...

"Takes a long time to finish the installation"

People need to research what they're doing BEFORE they do it. Guess this is just more proof that you really DON'T need to be "leet" to install Gentoo, all you need to do is to be able to type the commands as given (who knew? lol).

I recompiled Openoffice.org for fun in Debian optimized for the Athlon XP I have and it loads faster without quickstart and it's much snappier Too bad it took five hours to complete, but for large apps like that it's worth the trouble. Compiling everything a la Gentoo is too much for me

sadly if you are installing Gentoo its assumed you know how Gentoo's package manager (portage) works, and thats via emerge and emerge compiles EVERYTHING from source if you dont have already prebuilt binaries at your disposal, for having software compiled for your system seems like a good idea for me, not having to look for packages online and just running a emerge --search makes me happy and i think anyone who has the ability to install ANY linux flavour should do some research before bitching about an install, aparently Sir your googling skills and general common sense are lacking, good luck next time, you lost this round.

A question about Gentoo.

I'm planning on downloading Gentoo and using it. However, I don't want to install the programs from the net as my net connection is too slow even to contemplate such a feat.

Is there a CD that already gives the source code of most programs for Gentoo so that I can do a stage 3 install and then install other packages from a CDROM rather than from the net?

Certainly - go to gentoo and get, and read, the handbook.
It's all in there for network-less installs.

How could you possibly determine what kind of Linux system you want, based on how long it takes to initially install on your system? From what I've read about Gentoo, you only have to install it once! You don't have to download the new CD's and install them every 6 months to a year. You just emerge to keep your system constantly up-to-date.
Personally, I've decided to give it a try. I know installing for 3 days or one entire day is going to be long. But if I don't have to worry about reinstalling a new version of Gentoo on down the road, then I'll take some time out of my busy life to get it done.

I read a recent review in which the reviewer said that on a fairly recent system, there is not much speed difference between a stage 1 and a stage 3 install. Never having done either, I can't comment on whether this is so. Then again, at some point, almost every package on your system will be reinstalled and recompiled, so you are only saving the initial install slowness.

Another member also pointed out that Vidalinux is a quick install and once you have pointed portage to the Gentoo sources and emerge-d, you have a Gentoo box.

I have installed Gentoo and I am still in the process of getting KDE for it.

Downloaded X and now trying the ATi drivers.

The fact I like about Gentoo is that it allows you to get a box up and running fairly quickly without the non-essentials (X, KDE and so on) and allows you to *choose* what you want rather than dump a whole bunch of binaries on your harddisk.

It takes time to "build" up a system, but I quite like the experience so far. Logical and very good documentation and you get your hands into the config files of Linux. It's a great learning distro and you find out what works "behind the scenes" in Linux.

I think I vote for Gentoo ahead of Slackware. Slackware is good, but it's no fun because I sort of like the "building your system" approach of Gentoo