Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on August 16, 2006 07:35 PM
People tend to assume that source-based distributions are complicated and slow to install, so they wonder who could ever use them.
My experience is that, nowadays, to setup a Gentoo box is not different from any other distro, because it installs precompiled (!) binary packages. The main difference is that, from then on, you can install packages with just one command, exactly like apt-get... BUT it will be extra-tailored to your environment with ONLY the features you really need. No more bloated Gnome libs when I just want Firefox and KDE (or viceversa), no more having to sigh because "my distro still doesn't support feature X or Z".
The compilation times, on a modern machine, are usually just a few minutes... and for very big packages like OpenOffice or Firefox, you still have the chance to download binaries.
Gentoo users are like "lazy" Slackware users, they like simplicity and control, but with ease... try installing HAL and dbus on Slackware, and you'll cry; try *removing* HAL and dbus from Ubuntu, and you'll cry as well. If you don't care about controlling and tweaking your environment, then Gentoo is not the distribution for you, but then maybe you don't really need Linux at all.
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Re:Gentoo HOWTOS
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on August 16, 2006 07:35 PMMy experience is that, nowadays, to setup a Gentoo box is not different from any other distro, because it installs precompiled (!) binary packages. The main difference is that, from then on, you can install packages with just one command, exactly like apt-get... BUT it will be extra-tailored to your environment with ONLY the features you really need. No more bloated Gnome libs when I just want Firefox and KDE (or viceversa), no more having to sigh because "my distro still doesn't support feature X or Z".
The compilation times, on a modern machine, are usually just a few minutes... and for very big packages like OpenOffice or Firefox, you still have the chance to download binaries.
Gentoo users are like "lazy" Slackware users, they like simplicity and control, but with ease... try installing HAL and dbus on Slackware, and you'll cry; try *removing* HAL and dbus from Ubuntu, and you'll cry as well. If you don't care about controlling and tweaking your environment, then Gentoo is not the distribution for you, but then maybe you don't really need Linux at all.
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