I’ve been using Linux for some time now , with the mainstream distros , SuSE , FC* and Ubuntu , I always shied away from Gentoo as it seemed aimed at the enthusiast / geek . Now with a little experience I thought I might give it a go .
But I don’t really want to tie up a cruncher for days trying to get it working , in comparison I know I can get a fully configured and updated Ubuntu cruncher going in 40 minutes to an hour .
Any advice or insight would be appreciated :tiphat:
If you just want to try it, how about using a virtual machine so you can have a play without tying up a box?
if you use the genkernel build, and follow the gentoo-handbook, everything should be pretty easier with respect to getting things actually working, as the genkernel builds everything in, the same way most distros do.
Play with that first before trying the custom kernel bits - I do all my installs using custom kernel on real machines, on vms keep with genkernel as finding the modules in kernel config can be a nightmare, simply because the emulation means tools like pciutils don’t pick things up correctly.
Things to remember - when you install there is NOTHING application wise, not even dhcpclient stuff, so really do follow the manual on the gentoo-wiki as much as possible. I’ve not read it for a while now, but it never used to mention packages such as “emerge gentoolkit”, which imo is essential for getting things working. I don’t think the default handbook mentions anything to do with running gui stuff, but then I do all my work on gentoo terminal (ssh) as they are compiled to do the EXACT job I want them to.
Good luck - in my opinion it really is worth the couple of hours it’ll take on first go, and one word of warning - watch the grub.conf file real close 
:Poke: @jHorner
DT.
I did this about 18 months ago, scared the heck outta me when it was on about compiling kernels etc :scared:
however, follow the install guide and don’t skip ahead impatiently :rolleyes: and you should be absolutely dandy… once you’re installed, hope you have a fast net connection and a LOT of time - in fact if you’ve a list of applications you want to install, might be best to script the installs and leave it overnight.
iirc the install took me about 2 hours with all the compiling etc, but the application installs took hours and hours 
upside is it’s all tuned for your hardware 
Sounds quite cool with the no installing crap you dont need.
Might have to try it for a light weight install myself.
Looks like I might have to dual boot my old win2k shuttle so I can play when I’ve got time - first 32bit install for more than a year.
have you had a go yet? Today I had a lesson in keeping it up to date. emerge <programname> didn’t get me anything. Turns out that my portage tree was so old that none of the mirrors had the version that emerge was asking for !!
emerge --sync is one of those commands you type and go do something else
On the plus note of work ‘playing’ a full install with 256Mb swap for a machine with 32Mb ram CAN (just) be done on a 1Gb usb stick. The NSLU2 install with Gentoo, it’s tight once you get a few apps on there, nfs mount /var/tmp and things get easier though
DT.
No - I fell at the first hurdle , the CD didn’t like my graphics card on the shuttle (7000 series Radeon) , I never got it to boot at all , and I didn’t really want to tie up my fastest cruncher for hours at a time . so it will have to wait until I can rummage through my parts box in the loft for a more suitable card .
there are numerous boot flags to lob at the cd rather than just enter, maybe one of those will suit the card better. Possibly the ‘failsafe’ one (from memory).
Good luck :xfinger:
DT.