On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Indi <thebeelzebubtrig...@gmail.com> wrote: > Whaddayatawkinbout, gentoo is more than great, it's awesome! > Gentoo isn't intended for beginners, and makes no claims about > "user friendliness" of which I'm aware. Generally speaking, making > things "user friendly" entails adding more layers of abstraction. > It's nice for those who don't want to study to learn how to use their > computer, but it's not going to give the best performance. Security is > also frequently impacted to some degree.
I just want to say that I love Gentoo Linux, have used it as my primary OS for years on multiple computers and can't stand to use anything else. I like having total control over everything. I truly enjoy it, the Gentoo Way just feels like "the right way" in general to me. That is my subjective opinion. But I also want to say that just because you're forced to do things yourself doesn't mean that makes them inherently better-performing or secure. :) One can just as easily screw up their CFLAGS and a have terrible security setup, especially a beginner. This list's archives are full of such stories... I say install a binary distro to get your feet wet with Linux. Understand the basic concepts of how the system works, using a shell, editing config files, etc. Once that's not a 100% foreign experience to you, then go and install Gentoo using the great docs, wikis, forums, mailing lists and IRC as your guide, and we can be your hand-holding friends along the way. I would also suggest using a virtual machine for your first installations. It will make it a lot less scary. You messed up partitioning? No problem, you didn't just destroy your Windows installation or your life-long collection of digital photos (that you probably never got around to making a backup of). As a newbie to Linux, comparing distros is usually equivalent to comparing the default desktop environment, wallpaper and color scheme. They don't know enough to care about bootloader, filesystem layout, LVM, package manager, or whatever holy wars linux distros are having these days. :) A beginner can certainly follow along the Gentoo install docs, but I think it takes a certain kind of person to tolerate it... Blindly copy-pasting commands that they don't understand isn't necessarily going to teach them anything. Not any more than blindly copy-pasting example code from a programming textbook makes you a programmer... Having at least some basic understand of the commands you're typing in will greatly enhance the experience, in my opinion. Good luck to the OP, whatever he chooses. Welcome to the dark side. :)
