Is it worth it?

[Tux]

I ahve always kept an eye on Gentoo as it looks interesting, but I have one question:

Is it worth the hours of compilation and downloading, is it much faster than a comparable install of slackware or debian say?

[Calum]

th eonly person i know who has used gentoo for any length of time is tom from newtolinux.org.uk but what little comment i have heard from him tends to put me off. he says it's great for making you learn things, but then so is slack really.

[TheQuirk]

In my opinion, it's not worth it. You're not going to get that much more performance from Gentoo than from, lets say, ArchLinux: and you won't have to wait for days(!) just to have a functioning Linux system with X and KDE (or whatever floats your boat).

[Tux]

That ArchLinux sounds cool, its more like how slack used to be.

[Gotroot?]

Gentoo rocks as a desktop if your willing to put 2-4 days into the installation, then be prepared to understand the portage system for normal package installation. Do you want open office? Its an hour compiling, on my 2600+. With Debian's apt, and yum and apt now out there for Red Hat I feel they make a more usable system that is much quicker.

BTW, I am writing this on a Gentoo system....

[insomnia]

th eonly person i know who has used gentoo for any length of time is tom from newtolinux.org.uk but what little comment i have heard from him tends to put me off. he says it's great for making you learn things, but then so is slack really.

For educational use, Gentoo rocks.
It actually teaches you to build and configure Linux, like "linux from scratch".
However, I've got it installad on one system and I don't plan spending that much time again for an other installation.

I don't dislike their installer, but i do believe some parts should be "optional".

Gentoo is based on it's *BSD like portage system(emerge).
People who don't like 'auto installation' tools shouldn't use it.

Still, Gentoo is a fast and easy to use linux system.
(...if you get past the installer...)

Once you get the installation done, it's all easy.

IMO: "Portage" and "Apt" are not the future...

[dickinsd]

IMO: "Portage" and "Apt" are not the future...

Care to share on what the future is?

I have tried to install Gentoo, but I keep getting lost, its taking too long, and I don't know how far I am from the end, its doing my head in, I really do have a serious headache from this now!

I want a distro that is not Debian or Red Hat based, and definately not SuSE or mandrake/mandriva or junk like XandrOS (personal opinion).

I have never used or seen slack, any good?

Dave

[artworx]

I used a lot of distroes until now, but i always had a feeling that something is missing.
I guess Gentoo is as fast as the amount of time you spend optimizing it. I'd say it's as fast as yoper linux. Maybe even faster.
The thing I love most about about Gentoo is that you have the power. You make the choices. Yes, it takes a lot of time to install and you really have to read a lot of things to get it working, but in my opinion it is worth it!