------ art_50891_11207835.1171213420920 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On 2/10/07, Tim X <timx / nospam.dev.null> wrote: > > > I have to state up-front that I've never used gentoo, so take the > following in > the context of questions (I guess I'm sort of playing devils advocate) > rather > than the basis for a religious war or flame bait. Will do. :) Many people I've talked to that use gentoo think its a great distro. > However, > I've also been told by quite a few that it is not the best choice for > someone > who is not familiar with the GNU Linux/Unix way of doing things (i.e. > someone > who has only been exposed to Windows). All of those I've spoken to have > come > from either other GNU Linux distros to gentoo or are from a Unix > background. > From personal eexperience introducing windows users to GNU Linux, I know > that > one of the most alien concepts they have trouble with is building from > sources, > dealing with makefiles etc. Therefore, I wonder if gentoo is really the > best > way to start compared to distros like Ubuntu, Debian or even Red Hat? > There are > a lot of quite subtle issues which anyone with some epxerience on Linux > tends > to be across, but for the uninitiated, they can be very confusing. Okay, Gentoo is more complicated than Mandrake, Fedora/RH, etc., in some ways. My Linux background starts out back when I got my first domain and hosted with a friend of mine. The account had shell access and I used to hang out in Pine to check my email when I was at work. When I'd go visit my friend in Austin who owned the hosting company and worked from home, I'd sit behind her and watch what she was doing and pick up on some things and ask questions. I eventually dual booted into RedHat (before Fedora) and would do stuff here and there, mainly from a user perspective. Believe it or not, building from sources really isn't that complicated. In Gentoo, you also have a package management system known as emerge... if I want to install Ruby on my system, for example, I'll click on my little Terminal icon, type su to log in as root, enter the root password, and then type 'emerge --ask --verbose ruby' (you can type this as emerge -av ruby in shorthand). It'll then query the source server and tell me what it needs to install, including any dependencies. If I type 'y' to install, it'll start installing. Sometimes you do get some errors, and that's where Google comes into play. (probably more info than you wanted.) As for building from source, normally you just download the tar.gz file, get in as root at a console, and type tar xfv source_file_name and it'll create the directories.... it's usually as simple as going into the necessary directory and typing a few commands. As for which distro to start out with, I probably would've thrown my hands up in desperation if I started out with Gentoo. I used Mandrake for a few months, felt I wasn't learning anything, then went to Fedora for quite a while, and while I was learning some, I didn't feel that I was learning as much as I wanted to, that and the fact that the last release I installed didn't work nicely with my ATI card and I got sick of messing with it, and in an impulsive moment, started my Gentoo experience. Now, mind you, the first month or so of my Gentoo move, I rebuilt my system about 4 or 5 times, because I screwed things up. LOL. But, I haven't needed to do that since, and even though I've screwed things up, I've been able to fix the things that went nutty. Another release that is supposed to be more ''user friendly' is Sabayon. It's based on Gentoo and has a lot of cool features preinstalled. http://www.sabayonlinux.org They have a Live CD or DVD download, and you can install off the DVD/CD, as well. Tons of packages are included. Most everything someone new would probably need. In short, my advice to a newbie with no Linux/Unix experience whatsoever, is to go with a distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandrake, or possibly Sabayon, use it for a few months, and then when you feel daring, make the plunge to Gentoo if you so desire. Again, I apologize for my verbosity. :) -- Samantha http://www.babygeek.org/ "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk." --Ralph Waldo Emerson ------ art_50891_11207835.1171213420920--