So you may have heard of the install gentoo meme, when I looked the guidebook I thought it looked a little complex like with Arch.
Does Gentoo have something special that other distros do not? Apparently you can use the USE FLAGS to determine what stuff you want and it’s meant to be even more lean on resources.
Isn’t there a Gentoo installer like with Arch? With Arch I can confidently just run the installer on a VM but I got stuck with Gentoo
Gentoo is basically arch but built around everything being compiled locally. There isn’t to my knowledge any “Gentoo-install”, but if you can manage to install arch manually it should be quite similar. Gentoo is a bit more complex than arch so if installing gentoo manually seems daunting I would recommend staying on arch.
There is literally a gentoo-install: https://github.com/oddlama/gentoo-install
Gentoo is a bit more complex than arch so if installing Gentoo manually seems daunting I would recommend staying on arch.
Why? How will he progress if he don’t try harder things?
Does Gentoo have something special that other distros do not?
Isn’t there a Gentoo installer like with Arch?
Nope. That’s the “something special”. You do it manually with the help of a very well written handbook and learn a great deal about how an os works. IMO a great experience.
How are each of those special? And how are others, inc. Gentoo, almost the same?
I did not mean it like that, at all.
You leave a comment saying these are special and all the others are more or less the same, but don’t explain how that’s the case.
I am genuinely asking.
(also sorry for posting thrice, internet issues)
“Install Gentoo” is a meme, not life advice. With Gentoo, the installation process gives you good insight in to the internals of Linux systems and compiling (almost) everything from source is interesting, but won’t produce noticeable benefits for average users. Especially since updates take some time, what with compiling the programs again. Gentoo is a great distro with a fantastic package manager, but unless you’re an enthusiast or a serious hobbyist, Don’t Install Gentoo.
Apparently you can use the USE FLAGS to determine what stuff you want and it’s meant to be even more lean on resources.
True and false; the “something special” in Gentoo is that you can tailor it to fit to your needs, and as far as I know no other distro comes even close - maybe the now almost defuct Funtoo. The “it’s more lean on resources” always seemed to me like a strawman people don’t like it came up with to diss on Gentoo.
The “it’s more lean on resources” always seemed to me like a strawman people don’t like it came up with to diss on Gentoo.
Wait but isn’t being more lean a good thing? Or am I misunderstanding how they’re using that word?
Of course it’s a good thing, but it’s not something Gentoo is particuarly goot at it (nor any distro, that is) but its detractors claim Gentoo says is “lean on resources” only to “debunk” that.
And the myth that is “supercomplicated”, but in the end the only “difficult” part is to install it - in the daily, pedestrian usage it’s pretty much like any other (rolling release) distro. Well, of course except package installation/update times, but it’s beyond to me why people created that false urgency of needing to have everything installed and updated the second you issued the command. It’s not like you won’t be able to use your computer at all while Portage does its thing.
