this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023

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I successfully installed Gentoo for the first time today! (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by H2207 to c/[email protected]

122 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Screenshot of QEMU VM showing an ASCII Gentoo Logo + system info

I followed Mental Outlaw's 2019 guide and followed the official handbook to get up-to-date instructions and tailored instructions for my system, the process took about 4 hours however I did go out for a nice walk while my kernel was compiling. Overall I enjoyed the process and learnt a lot about the Linux kernel while doing it.

I'm planning on installing it to my hardware soon, this was to get a feel for the process in a non-destructive way.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Everyone should do this at least once

[–] khannie 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Agreed. It's such a great learning process. I ultimately gave up on Gentoo but learned a lot by using it for about 2 years way back in around 2005.

Linux From Scratch brings a huge leap in understanding too.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I found Gentoo more helpful than LFS because with LFS you compile about 80 packages from source one at a time but you don't learn too much about the packages.

LFS gave me much more awareness of what packages actually come with a Linux install but Gentoo taught me more about configuring and booting a Linux system.

Although I'd definitely recommend both to anyone wanting to learn. I'd do Gentoo first then LFS.

Edit: LFS is also a masterclass in cross compiling so if that's something you're curious about LFS is the way to go.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Back in like 2011 I was living out of state for college. Had decided to drop out at the time so had limitless free time for a bit. I definitely used that time to compile my own kernel and setup gentoo lol. I haven’t played with gentoo since but it was fun and helped my appreciation for Linux.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My first Gentoo install took like a week to get X running. It was my first foray into Linux (Ok, I briefly tried mkLinux).

I learnt the hard way, but I learnt. And I'm still on that same path: Gentoo. Why I don't bother switching? Because I can customize Gentoo to whatever I like, so instead of doing distro hop I just reconfigure things.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Because I can customize Gentoo to whatever I like

Can you customise it to support AAA videogames?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah. Install steam.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Why not?

I don't have much experience on those games. I've bought around ten games from gog. And I specifically selected those which provided Linux native binaries. But there are AAA gamers among Gentoo users.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Speaking from personal experience, see you on your old distro in a couple of days!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (10 children)

How much maintenance does Gentoo need once installed? I don't mind a complicated install but it's the constant tinkering I can't deal with.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you've done arch, it's like long arch

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Gentoo probably doesn't have all packages. One of the reasons I love Arch is because it almost always has any package in the AUR. It's a lot more work to try and get something installed on Ubuntu related distros. They try to keep up by using snaps and stuff but it's still no comparison. Arch has everything.

Still it's gets a bit boring now since I know it so well, so want to try Gentoo at some point also.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nix has entered the chat.

And one day I'll figure out how to use it.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gentoo has overlays which are similar to AUR, I haven't felt like I'm missing packages compared to when I ran arch

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It's pretty maintenance free.

The following will make the experience a bit more seamless:

use stable packages
use sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel or syskernel/gentoo-kernel-bin
use sys-boot/grub or better yet sys-boot/refind which auto-recognizes the latest kernel in your boot directory

I don’t mind a complicated install

After you have "installed" Gentoo there will be quite lot of installing of different programs to build your own customized distro. However if you yse systemd you'd get quite a lot in one strike, since systemd contains a whole lot of the central core components, like system logger (journald). The other route is to use OpenRC and with it sysvinit or openrc-init and choose the rest of the components.

Asking your question (the one I'm replying to) at the Gentoo forums may give you better answers and tips how to build maintenance free setup.

[–] H2207 4 points 1 year ago

Afaik, albeit this system is only like 6 hours old, just an updating everything should be enough. Again though, I've still never ran Gentoo semi-permanently nor on bare metal so I can't really help you out there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Carter @H2207 You don’t really have to tinker with any distro. Once you set it up just let it be with a schedule of updates that fits your usecase. If you feel compelled to constantly update and rejigger, that’s you, not the distro. I have a Mankato machine that has been sitting for a couple of years with monthly security updates.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I installed Arch last week and it crashed within hours and then refused to boot due to an fstab issue. I switched to openSUSE and haven't had any issues.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Congrats! I bet you learned a lot along the way…

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

One of us!

You can join our tiny community at [email protected]

I run it as my main gaming OS, no joke.

[–] demonsword 3 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I run it as my main gaming OS, no joke

pics or I'll call that bullshit

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do we have some kind of a remindme bot here? I'm away from home for another week and this is my desktop.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You can join our tiny community at [email protected]

Oh, nice!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I remember printing out the Gentoo installation manual in the compsci lab way back in 2004. It was my first Linux distro and have fond memories of tinkering around on it. I remember leaving it a few years later for a cool new distro that was on the rise called Ubuntu. I still think portage is one of the better approaches to package management though.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I installed Gentoo once. ever. I use Ubuntu now.

This was in the mid 2000's and I went so far as to compile the kernel myself and build out all the packages. I was so exhausted at the end of it all, that I'm pretty sure I put away that system and never looked back. It's quite the achievement, but I don't wish to repeat that experience.

[–] Presi300 8 points 1 year ago

Good job! You should try to install a DE/WM next.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember how rewarding and satisfying it was when I finally installed Gentoo for the first time

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Same. Gentoo taught me so much. Wouldn't run it today, though. Ain't got time for that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Congrats!

Once you get it set just so, remember it’s ok to … leave it!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hahahaha

Hahahhahahhahahahhaha!

Mwha Ha Haaaa!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is the way

System boots, runs flawlessly.

Hmm

# emerge -deep world

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did it from stage 1 once.. wasn't a fast computer either. You have to compile the tools to compile the tools. Then compile the base packages, then everything else..

Alas you can't do that any more. Pity as it was fun.

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[–] REdOG 6 points 1 year ago

My first Gentoo install took a weekend and about a week later I had a desktop. KDE took me like 2 days to compile. p3 800mhz Toshiba with maybe 256MB RAM I forget actually...version was 1.2 alpha I wrote 1.too on the CD

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I have installed it maybe 5 times now manually. These days I do a script install then mod whatever I need to afterwards. This time I'm experimenting with binaries by converting the whole system to a bin system. It's a good bit quicker and a little easier to manage. The few things I need to configure get done so through source, but most things are fine as a bin package.

[–] mvirts 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Worth celebrating! Time to celebrate by breaking everything 😹

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While one can break Gentoo, in most cases it is also fixable.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Mazel tov!

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