Comments on: Review: Gentoo 2008.0 and beyond Part 1

By: mv

mv — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:54:03 +0000

Some suggestions about gentoo from my personal experience.

1. Read gentoo handbook
2. Install gentoo minimal system from cd via command line.
3. Choose gui (gnome/kde/etc) and read manuals how to install and configure it.
4. Install gui.
5. Read..
6. Install..
7. …

What i want to say? Firstly, you should read how to do something – then do it . My first linux distro was gentoo and i am still using gentoo. Good distro.

P.S. Sorry for my English.

By: Cross

Cross — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:27:06 +0000

Hi Eric

The screenshots you used are of the graphical installer of Gentoo. Well, the graphical installer is pretty much broken. The devs admit it.

I tried it after reading your blog. It didn’t work for me. Same has been the case with many others too. The true “Gentoo” experience is in its command line install. i have read people saying Gentoo installation is difficult that Slackware; but I was able to pull through at first attempt. I think you should go for it as well and write a review on that.

Also check out http://intosimple.blogspot.com/search/label/gentoo

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:43:03 +0000

I did look at Sabayon, here.

By: MeaCulpa

MeaCulpa — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:40:25 +0000

Another route:

An easy way to try it out is to install Sabayon.

Try it out, if you like it, stick in Sabayon or slowly migrate to your home-brew Gentoo

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:13:23 +0000

“I’ve never installed it successfully from the LiveCD”

Yeah….if it doesn’t work, don’t offer it is how I feel about that.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:46:51 +0000

I’ve never installed it successfully from the LiveCD. Doing so defeats (part of) the purpose of Gentoo and, from my experience, just doesn’t work. However, installing it from the minimal C.D. does work, on both my C2Q with 4GB R.A.M. and my Pentium III notebook with 128MB R.A.M. That’s part of Gentoo’s greatness.

By: M.S. Babaei

M.S. Babaei — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:34:51 +0000

I’m using Minimal-CD and start from scratch each time I installed it on any pc’s.
First time, I installed it on my MBP and I followed the guide on Gentoo wiki. It’s strait-forward and everything works fine.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:02:43 +0000

awesome – glad it worked for you!

By: Mikal Sande

Mikal Sande — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:32:20 +0000

I did run into some difficulties trying to install Gentoo with the liveCD and minimal install. So I checked out the Alternative Installation part of their docs, and I found a guide for installing from Knoppix (or an existing linux install for that matter).

So I downloaded the newest stage3 and portage snapshot and followed the guide ( http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml ) from there. Although its not the easiest way to install I found it convenient since I was free surf the net, watch videos and browse the Gentoo docs while installing. It took me about 2 days to get to a working system with Gnome and a fair selection of apps I like, due to my bad internet connection.

For me it was a great learning experince, and I just might jump ship to Gentoo if I can successfully maintain it.

By: Mikal Sande

Mikal Sande — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:21:09 +0000

I had the same problem with the 2008.0 liveCD, it wouldnt work in virtualbox. So now Im going to try to install with the minimal CD on the harddrive. I will let you know if I get it to work.

By: It’s A Binary World 2.0 » Review: Slackware 12.2

It’s A Binary World 2.0 » Review: Slackware 12.2 — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:36:48 +0000

[...] already tried installing Gentoo. Twice. The other Linux distro for the hardcore, for whom the Ubuntus and the Fedoras is too [...]

By: Luca

Luca — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:40:47 +0000

What an Bumptious post!
Gentoo is for people that want to know EXACTLY how to get under the hood and so is the boot messages.
Looking at an orange progress bar stuck at some point due to an error… and not being able to understand which service (or device) to blame to… make me feel I’m booting some micro$oft OS.

Gentoo is just a collection of compile scripts to incrementally build your GNU-Linux box above a “nothing by default” environment.
If you don’t understand this… keep away.
If you want a static and ready to use snapshot (such that you don’t need internet connectivity)… keep away

The only bad of Gentoo is that reveals how fast is decreasing the number of person that actually like going under the hood to really understand how an open source OS created by the effort of a world-wide comunity.

If there is still someone, plz, just respect him! Linux is the best informatics synonim of freedom, after all!

an Ubuntu, Red-hat, Mandrake, Xandros, Fedora, Debian, Lfs and Gentoo user

By: Review: Sabayon 3.5 Pod | It’s A Binary World 2.0

Review: Sabayon 3.5 Pod | It’s A Binary World 2.0 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:03:43 +0000

[...] Comments Eric Mesa on Review: Gentoo 2008.0 and beyond Part 1ohdear on Review: Gentoo 2008.0 and beyond Part 1Shawn on Review: Gentoo 2008.0 and beyond Part [...]

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:33:52 +0000

That’s the reason why it’s great to have a choice in distros

By: ohdear

ohdear — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:25:10 +0000

Quote: “I’m one of those people who believe we should remove this sense of mysticism about how computers work. The more of the general public we can get educated on what’s happening with their computers, the better. They don’t have to all become computer Gurus – that’s extremely unrealistic to expect. But I’d like to see as many people as possible getting an idea of what’s going on under the hood. (You hear that Fedora, Ubuntu, etc?)”
: End Quote

Yes, its unrealistic. Most people just want things to work.
The likes of Ubuntu attempt to give them something that just works.
Thats fine. So why ought they listen to you? How arrogant!

10 minutes (‘pointlessly’) fiddling with something like Gentoo would be enough to put ‘most people’ off Linux for life.
Understand – Gentoo is a niche Distro. it (only) appeals to those who want to get under the hood (and then some!) in the first place.

Gentoo is dying on its ass. There is a reason for that.