Comments for Review: Gentoo 2007.0

I've been using Linux (Ubuntu) for almost a year. It's been my primary OS for 6 months. KDE turned out to be much better than Gnome and got me hooked ;). As far as Gentoo, the first reason in your conclusion is why I want to experience it. I tried a couple of months ago but the long installation turned me off. I might give it a try again when I get my new laptop. A CLI install is definitely the way go from what I've heard so I won't even bother with version 2007.0's LiveCD.

Regarding the non display of x servers, i should point out that gentoo linux doesn't ship with ati drivers, as they're entirely proprietary, and less common than nvidia cards. as stated earlier, editing the conf to use the vesa driver does fix that.

the lack of networking issue, is because the 2007.0 live cd doesn't ship with a dhcp client included. you can still configure your networking manually by opening terminal, and typing "net-setup" or "suso net-setup" depending on whether you're logged in as root or the default gentoo user. bear in mind that manual configuration requires that you have knowledge of the settings for your networking, for example, if you're conected to a router, your ip will be 192.168.0.x , where x is probably a 2 digit number. your gateway should be 192.168.0.1 as should your dns server. your broadcast ip should be 192.168.0.255 and the hostmask should be 255.255.255.0.

regarding the issues with the gtk+ gui installer, i think the most likely problem is that there's a flaw in the actual .iso file that's available for download, as the same issue occurs with the live dvd, although at a slightly later point. standard and advanced installs both work fine within given tolerances ( installing to a dedicated non dual-boot hdd, editing xorg.conf for ati card if necessary, setting up networking) although, i have to say, the installer does seem a little on the slow side ( even considering that my testing rig is only a 1.7ghz athlon xp with 768mb ram) but i would expect that there'll be an improvement by the 2007.1 release.

as a sidenote, i'd like to make a suggestion, that people look on gentoo releases the same way that myself, and most of my friends do.

We consider the 200x.0 release, to essentially be a beta for the 200x.1 release, as there're always marked improvements in the latter release.

if people looked on things that way, they'd probably have a more realistic appreciation of the release.

I'm currently a Gentoo user, but have used Ubuntu before. If you tweak Ubuntu, it can run as fast as Gentoo.

Oh yeah, I completely agree that the installer sucks because it's buggy. I disagree that it's lacking in features however. Setting use flags, choosing between what's on the cd versus the net, stage 1 install possibility, binaries vs source... there actually is alot of features on the installer. It was not written for newbs though, it was written for people who have already manually installed gentoo a few times.

As I have had little difficulty configuring any distro to run as zippily as Gentoo I don't see it as a performance distro. The gentoo mantra is "it's about choice." You approached the distro wondering what they included by default, as you discussed with what was on the live cd, which already tells me that at least right now it's not the distro for you.

The easiest way to install gentoo is by a manual install. That is format and mount a partition, download and extract stage 3 tarball and portage and then chroot in there and go to town.

Ever since they started with the GUI installer in 2006.0 I've been booting with the nox param at the boot loader. Command line gentoo installation is very fast and teaches you skills I've used to fix other installations. The thing that takes the longest for me is kernel configuration which I end up needing to do eventually anyway to get some of my hardware working on any distro. I'd rather config my kernel in gentoo that fedora or suse, etc because the whole distro lends toward such customization.

I agree if you are looking for what packages are included gentoo is not for you. I like fluxbox, vim, and spoil myself with gnome-terminal and anjuta. What I love is typing free -m and noticing the majority of my RAM is free.

Been using Gentoo since version 1.2. I just tried the GUI installer for the first time and I can say the the ""x86 quick install guide"" is easier and less time consuming. I'll stick to the old install method for now.

this review is horrible. move along folks.

First of all my first experinse with linux was Gentoo thanks for that! But a common mistake a lot of people does, like me, is not to read the HANDBOOK carefuly enough... I did have many errors firsttime, but after reading it a several time, i solved my own problem, and it worked :) And the experience have been many from that time to now!

thanks Gentoo for a good experince time!

As far as installation goes, the LiveDVD and LiveCD are widely regarded to be riddled with bugs. Any time I install Gentoo on a new box, I go with the tried-and-true manual install. I messed up so many times on the first install, but with each one I learned not only what I was doing wrong, but what I was actually doing.

It's been said that if you have a problem with your Linux install, talk to a Slackware user. It's a distro that forces you to learn about much of the internals. For my money, I'd recommend a look on the Gentoo Forums. Love it or hate it, Gentoo forces you to learn what you're dealing with.

Coming from a Gentoo Lover, do yourself a favor and install manually. It might take longer and be more painful, but it's step one of being a real Gentoo user.

I am trying to install gentoo, but it won't ping the network. My card is recognized alright, and when i do an ifconfig, it seems to be configured correctly. I am going through a router, via an adsl modem. this is frustrating me severely...