GentooKwikis

Here are some Kwikis for the Gentoo distribution of Linux.

• The Gentoo homepage is at http://www.gentoo.org/
• The GentooForums are at http://forums.gentoo.org/
• The Gentoo FAQs are at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/faq.xml
• Gentoo is a distribution using source-based packaging

Suggestion For Trying Gentoo

By JTruesdale

Installing Gentoo from scratch on a slower system can take a loooooong time, which is unfortunate because a slower system would probably get the most benefit from compiling everything with custom settings.

Gentoo can be downloaded as a two disc cd-rom set that contains pre-compiled binaries optimized for a variety of CPU architectures (see the Gentoo Store for the details). This is a good thing for those who want to just give Gentoo a trial run on their system. A problem that I see is that if you follow their installation instructions, along the way they tell you to do an emerge -sync which goes out to the Internet and figures out what new packages are available. Now when you try to install something that has a newer version, Gentoo will try to install the newer version from the net. Since they will be downloading sources, they will have to be compiled which can take a huge amount of time. For example, on one of my systems with 512MB RAM and a 1.3 Ghz Athlon, it took the better part of a day to compile Mozilla and Open Office took even longer.

My advice to those who just want to give Gentoo a quick trial is to:

1. Follow the instructions for the stage 3/GRP install.
2. Ignore the instructions about doing an emerge sync.
3. Install the pre-compiled versions of all packages with emerge --usepkg <package name>

This will get things up and running in an afternoon or so (more or less) and give you something to play around with. As an example of the time savings, I was able to install the pre-compiled versions of both KDE and Gnome on a slow system in a bit more than an hour, I suspect compiling them would take a little longer .

When you're ready to update your system, then do the emerge sync, etc. (see the Gentoo docs) to start the update and then let it run overnight. Your mileage will vary.

I strongly recommend reading the documentation before you start experimenting with Gentoo, it will make you aware of your options so you are not surprised at install time and it will save you time and headaches in the long run. I'd read the Handbook, the Desktop Configuration Guide, the Portage User Guide and the FAQ. Yes, installing Gentoo is a bit harder than other distributions but if you want or need complete control of your Linux installation, Gentoo is the way to go.