# gentoo really that great?



## kane22 (Jul 19, 2009)

Hey all you linux users, I have a question. I have never had the opprotunnity to use linux, but I have become increasingly more interested in the OS. My question to you all is: Is gentoo the most preferred version of linux? why or why not? and would you recommend this OS to a dedicated windows user?
Thanks all!


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## A Cheese Danish (Jul 19, 2009)

I've never used Gentoo either. But I'd recommend either: Linux Mint, Fedora, or Ubuntu.
Personally, I'd download a LiveCD of any you want to try and see which you like best.
And in all honesty, I think Ubuntu, KBE, Red Hat, and Fedora are the most popular. (although I'm sure someone will correct me on that)


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## p_o_s_pc (Jul 19, 2009)

Suse linux is my fav by far the simplest. never heard of gentoo you could always just give it a try


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## MilkyWay (Jul 19, 2009)

gentoo is another kinda big one, red hat is just what ubuntu is based on

open suse is a bit popular but a lot stay away becasue it lookes like windows and has some actual ties to microsoft


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## Easy Rhino (Jul 19, 2009)

MilkyWay said:


> gentoo is another kinda big one, red hat is just what ubuntu is based on
> 
> open suse is a bit popular but a lot stay away becasue it lookes like windows and has some actual ties to microsoft



red hat isnt based on what ubuntu is based on. ubuntu is based on debian and red hat is red hat. (fedora is a cutting edge version of red hat.)


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## Frick (Jul 19, 2009)

I used Gentoo for a while, and it was pretty nice. Give the Live CD a try!

EDIT: Oh wait, weekly releases? No Live CD anymore?


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## BababooeyHTJ (Jul 19, 2009)

Honestly, unless your really up for a learning experience don't start out with Gentoo. Just look through the Gentoo handbook It's no easy install process and you really need to know how to work in a Terminal which you need to know with any distro anyways. You really are compiling everything from scratch with Gentoo. You really can't go wrong with Debian, that might be a good place to start.


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## temp02 (Jul 19, 2009)

Exactly what *BababooeyHTJ* said, better to start with one of the *A Cheese Danish* recommendations and latter on, when you are familiar with how Linux works, try Gentoo.


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## MilkyWay (Jul 19, 2009)

Easy Rhino said:


> red hat isnt based on what ubuntu is based on. ubuntu is based on debian and red hat is red hat. (fedora is a cutting edge version of red hat.)



okay i got mixed up sorry, thanks for pointign that out tho

red hat is old now right and debian?

a distro based on a distro based on a distro linux can be very complex lol


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## Solaris17 (Jul 20, 2009)

MilkyWay said:


> okay i got mixed up sorry, thanks for pointign that out tho
> 
> red hat is old now right and debian?
> 
> a distro based on a distro based on a distro linux can be very complex lol




its not really an overlap its more like a code base...debian code base redhat code base suse code base etc....think of it like this...you have HTML (code base) and alot of diffirent looking sites that do diffirent things (distros) now imagine you have diffirent code bases debian(HTML5) etc which make up the few platforms you see their may be alot of types of linux but their arent as many code bases. here is a quick web just for understanding

(CODE BASES)
......................-distro3-another
GENTOO-Gentoo-distro1-another
......................-distro2-another

.....................-distro1-another
DEBIAN-Ubuntu-distro3-another
....................-distro2-another

............................-distro1-another
REDHAT-Fedora core-distro3-another
............................-distro2-another

.................-distro1-another
SUSE-Suse-distro2-another
...............-distro3-another

i do agree however i think gentoo is the best distro their is because you can mod it any way you want make it to w/e and profile it to fit your rig like a glove however..HOWEVER to do this everything is compiled and modded from scratch it has an incredable learning curve it is very difficult to learn for the begginner


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## Easy Rhino (Jul 20, 2009)

i havnt really tried gentoo. i know i should. ive been REALLY lucky with Ubuntu. everything works 95% perfectly (there are some virtualization issues) but i still prefer fedora. fedora has virtualization issues for some reason.


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jul 23, 2009)

Easy Rhino said:


> i havnt really tried gentoo. i know i should. ive been REALLY lucky with Ubuntu. everything works 95% perfectly (there are some virtualization issues) but i still prefer fedora. fedora has virtualization issues for some reason.



uBuntu, Linux mint (uBuntu based) are both very good for beginners.


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## Jupiter (Aug 14, 2009)

The question is, are you a geek wanting to learn linux? I use both. Windows
in my job and linux as default on my personal pc at home. Because i am a
geek and wanted to LEARN linux, i use the developers preferred Distro... Gentoo.
I also have Ubuntu installed. Ubuntu is the easiest distro for any linux noob. It
has a very good and easy installation cd/dvd and works on just about any
old/weak hardware. It is very automated and bloated just like windows.
Ubuntu also comes with an installer called Wubi that allows you to install
Ubuntu in Windows so you can try it. This obviously is not in my opinion
a better solution then to try it from the Livedvd with no install.

On the other hand if you want to LEARN linux, i would recommend Gentoo.
It is based on building EVERYTHING from source code, manually editing your
config files, manually building your partitions, building your own kernel and
tuning it for your specific setup/hardware. There is also a pre compiled
flavor of Gentoo called Sabayon that has an awesome LiveDVD. This
LiveDVD like Ubuntu 'bloated' comes with Compiz. If your not familiar with
Compiz/Beryl, IT alone makes Linux worth looking into.
My current Compiz 'OpenGL' desktop...





You can do all the same things with any distro.
Most distro's just aren't designed for that and usually don't have the tools
installed by default. From my personal experience if you are a windows geek,
you can easily jump into a detailed Gentoo stage 1/3 install in one day
and learn more about linux then you could working with Ubuntu for a couple
of weeks. Here is an example of a Gentoo stage 1/3 install similar to what i use...
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-696386-highlight-conrad.html

Here is one of my old videos running Compiz with WinXP running in a virtual
terminal on viewport 4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJZ1wnQX6s


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## AsphyxiA (Aug 27, 2009)

I've been using gentoo for about 2 years.  It really is a great system however, for the nubby linux user, its not good.  You have to build everything!  

Now if you want to get into a good distro that acts much like gentoo, I'd suggest Arch.  It's much like the BSD format that gentoo follows but it is easier to setup.  You have to build your system, but it is really easy to do.

You could go with Mint or Ubuntu but they always seem to be too bloated and take away the core learning process that is involved with every linux distro.


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## Frick (Aug 27, 2009)

I used the Live CD for some time, and I liked it alot. But then I wanted to install it, and everything went meh so I didn't bother.


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## dna1x (Aug 27, 2009)

Gentoo is not for beginners. It will take three days to build it from scratch assuming everything goes smoothly. 
I think it's best to go with Ubuntu or try a live cd.


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## Jupiter (Aug 27, 2009)

Fresh gentoo toolchain build while trying diff CFLAGS with
gcc-4.4.1. Keep in mind the first pass was without ccache...
This used to take 3 times longer with my AMD X2



> vger ~ # genlop -t glibc gcc
> * sys-libs/glibc
> 
> Wed Aug 26 11:13:18 2009 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2
> ...





> vger ~ # genlop -t gcc
> * sys-devel/gcc
> 
> Wed Aug 26 12:07:15 2009 >>> sys-devel/gcc-4.4.1
> ...


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## pr0n Inspector (Sep 16, 2009)

I'd rather use Arch(in fact I'm running it right now). Easy to use and maintain but still highly customizable.


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## AsphyxiA (Sep 17, 2009)

pr0n Inspector said:


> I'd rather use Arch(in fact I'm running it right now). Easy to use and maintain but still highly customizable.


dont forget, its like the best linux learning distro out there!!!


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