Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

Barrucadu · 2008-04-21 16:23:34

For the past few days I've been trying to get Gentoo working on my desktop computer. It was a nightmare. Firstly, the module for my network card was not loaded, and X failed to start on the live cd. When I did get the live cd working, the installer died at random points with an empty log file.
Convinced that my problems were just due to a bad burn, I tried the Gentoo 2008 beta live cd. That just didn't work at all. I then re-burned the 2007 live cd on a much slower burn speed on a newer disk. Same problems.

I'm moving away from Gentoo and will be sticking Arch on that machine. It will be my "Impress the Laymen" machine, so I'll be investing heavily in the eye-candy department. I tried Gentoo originally because of the performance gain from optimising everything, and the learning experience. However, unable to even install it, I've given up for a while.

slackhack · 2008-04-21 16:33:44

I didn't find that gentoo was faster than arch in any noticeable way. That was just my build, though, maybe others have different experiences. In terms of ease of use and convenience, it's night and day in favor of arch.

kensai · 2008-04-21 16:54:44

HAHA, the Gentoo GUI Installer the biggest baddest joke ever. That installer is trash. Let me not get started on this, since I said too many times in the gentoo forums that it was a bad idea and there it is, it is the worst idea ever. True Gentoo users should install from the minimal CD, That install method is a bit complicated but safer. In fact I can install Gentoo in less than 30 minutes doing it the old way. I almost know by memory the installation routine. Well, anyways, Gentoo has been a sinking ship for too long, and it is trying to get afloat but, such a big ship takes a while to float again. And, don't get me wrong, I think Gentoo is the better source based distribution.

Last edited by kensai (2008-04-21 16:54:56)

Misfit138 · 2008-04-21 17:17:09

kensai wrote:

HAHA, the Gentoo GUI Installer the biggest baddest joke ever. That installer is trash. Let me not get started on this, since I said too many times in the gentoo forums that it was a bad idea and there it is, it is the worst idea ever. True Gentoo users should install from the minimal CD, That install method is a bit complicated but safer. In fact I can install Gentoo in less than 30 minutes doing it the old way. I almost know by memory the installation routine. Well, anyways, Gentoo has been a sinking ship for too long, and it is trying to get afloat but, such a big ship takes a while to float again. And, don't get me wrong, I think Gentoo is the better source based distribution.

30 minutes? Are you exaggerating? That must be one fast machine. It took me most of a Saturday to install Gentoo on a dual core @2.4GHz.

Milfadoodle · 2008-04-21 17:25:55

Misfit138 wrote:

kensai wrote:
HAHA, the Gentoo GUI Installer the biggest baddest joke ever. That installer is trash. Let me not get started on this, since I said too many times in the gentoo forums that it was a bad idea and there it is, it is the worst idea ever. True Gentoo users should install from the minimal CD, That install method is a bit complicated but safer. In fact I can install Gentoo in less than 30 minutes doing it the old way. I almost know by memory the installation routine. Well, anyways, Gentoo has been a sinking ship for too long, and it is trying to get afloat but, such a big ship takes a while to float again. And, don't get me wrong, I think Gentoo is the better source based distribution.
30 minutes? Are you exaggerating? That must be one fast machine. It took me most of a Saturday to install Gentoo on a dual core @2.4GHz.

I usually just install with binary packages then start recompiling stuff once I have a usable system. Wont take more than 30min doing it that way. Then again just the base system goes pretty fast aswell even if you compile it and use stage3.

SpookyET · 2008-04-21 17:27:30

If you want an eye candy machine, have a loot at openSuse 11.

Barrucadu · 2008-04-21 18:06:12

I'll definitely be having a look at Gentoo in a year or so when I am much more confident with the inner workings of Linux.

GuyNamedRob · 2008-04-22 01:41:39

That's funny. I'm about to go back to Ubuntu for a year, so I can come back to Arch when I understand Linux better.

I guess it's all relative. It was the uuid-thingies on the new installer that broke me (and my hobby machine). What the heck are they? I'll find out, but I only get 2 hours a week to dig in to this "Linux Hobby". Ubuntu just does it all for me.

Sigh. I really like Arch.

Misfit138 · 2008-04-22 02:53:04

GuyNamedRob wrote:

That's funny. I'm about to go back to Ubuntu for a year, so I can come back to Arch when I understand Linux better.
I guess it's all relative. It was the uuid-thingies on the new installer that broke me (and my hobby machine). What the heck are they? I'll find out, but I only get 2 hours a week to dig in to this "Linux Hobby". Ubuntu just does it all for me.
Sigh. I really like Arch.

Dual boot! Stick with it! Ween yourself!

iphitus · 2008-04-22 07:41:29

uuid's are unique identifiers for each partition. Simple You use them instead of /dev/hdxxx sdxxx

GuyNamedRob · 2008-04-22 11:33:30

Thanks for the encouragement and ideas.

It never occured to me to dual boot Ubuntu/Arch. I'll do some research and get that going. Things are further complicated by my having only 1 machine now, but I'll make it work. (It wasn't Arch that actually broke my old 1999 celeron laptop, it was the same-day encounter of my puppy with the power cord. It was unplugged at the time, thankfully.)

Now I'm excited again!

Rob

WiLLiE · 2008-04-22 17:00:39

iphitus wrote:

uuid's are unique identifiers for each partition. Simple You use them instead of /dev/hdxxx sdxxx

Really? Simple?
They make life much harder.
I always replace them with with the more human readable /dev/sdxx, so i know exactly what's where.

Barrucadu · 2008-04-22 17:20:22

Aah! UUIDs! Just because I understand them doesn't mean I love them. /dev/sdXX is so much easier.

TheBodziO · 2008-04-22 17:27:03

Misfit138 wrote:

kensai wrote:
HAHA, the Gentoo GUI Installer the biggest baddest joke ever. That installer is trash. Let me not get started on this, since I said too many times in the gentoo forums that it was a bad idea and there it is, it is the worst idea ever. True Gentoo users should install from the minimal CD, That install method is a bit complicated but safer. In fact I can install Gentoo in less than 30 minutes doing it the old way. I almost know by memory the installation routine. Well, anyways, Gentoo has been a sinking ship for too long, and it is trying to get afloat but, such a big ship takes a while to float again. And, don't get me wrong, I think Gentoo is the better source based distribution.
30 minutes? Are you exaggerating? That must be one fast machine. It took me most of a Saturday to install Gentoo on a dual core @2.4GHz.

There's also distcc… 30 minutes is quite possible time.

I don't know about "sinking ship" and stuff (I haven't been in gentoo waters for quite a time) but one thing is certain for me: gentoo had and still has a nice set of documentation that's useful regardless the distro you're using. + I've had some good time with gentoo in the past .

@WiLLiE: I also value labels as a nice solution for systems with frequently changing hardware config. Well… as elegant solution anyway

daf666 · 2008-04-22 18:13:59

I tries gentoo three different times on hardware other than my main desktop, and always ended up with a frustrating catastrophe.
It starts when you try to make sense of the disorienting misguiding documentation that always leave you with a feeling that you might be doing something wrong, and ends up when the installer (cli/gui) crashes or fails with no real apparent reason, just to try again time after time with failures in different steps...
I seriously dont recommend it, go for LFS if ur hardcore.

Maki · 2008-04-22 18:38:37

SpookyET wrote:

If you want an eye candy machine, have a loot at openSuse 11.

Whooot???? its 2 months away, and the beta isn't that eye-candy and its unstable/unusable.

jeebusroxors · 2008-04-23 14:31:02

Barrucadu wrote:

I'll definitely be having a look at Gentoo in a year or so when I am much more confident with the inner workings of Linux.

Yea instead of Gentoo, go with LFS.

kensai · 2008-04-23 15:28:30

Misfit138 wrote:

30 minutes? Are you exaggerating? That must be one fast machine. It took me most of a Saturday to install Gentoo on a dual core @2.4GHz.

I mean a base install, sorry for the confusion. I need at least a whole day to have a full blown gnome desktop and another night to have OpenOffice installed.

Obi-Lan · 2008-04-23 21:10:59

I wonder why they made that installer and still keep it even if it doesn't work very well.. I've always installed Gentoo "in traditional way" which means partitioning harddisk with fdisk, untarring stage3 system on root partition and doing rest of necessary installation stuff in chroot.

kensai · 2008-04-24 12:25:28

Obi-Lan wrote:

I wonder why they made that installer and still keep it even if it doesn't work very well.. I've always installed Gentoo "in traditional way" which means partitioning harddisk with fdisk, untarring stage3 system on root partition and doing rest of necessary installation stuff in chroot.

Yeah!, real men use the CLI.:cool:

tj · 2008-05-05 11:27:16

I've been a Gentoo user since 2001 and a linux user since 1998. Gentoo was the distro that finally helped me to learn (a few things at least) about linux and weaned me off dual boots.

I actually find their documentation to be some of the best there is and given the number of times it's referenced on the arch wiki I can't be the only one with similar opinions.

30 minutes to a base install from a minimal livecd is entirely realistic if you're familiar with the process and have a half-decent machine - I can do it in just over 30 on a dual PIII 1GHz with 2G RAM and 15K rpm scsi HDs. My PII-400 takes noticeably longer...

The GUI installer was ill-conceived and indicative of how the distro had lost it's way - I still use a 2005.x or 2006.x livecd IIRC, you can grab the latest and greatest grub and splash artwork from portage anyway and you download the latest snapshot of the toolchain as part of the base install process so having a 'new' livecd is not really such a great deal. IMO they should ditch it because GUI-tools and point-and-click installation/administration are not gentoo's unique-selling-point.

I don't see the point in mudslinging other distros, seems a bit childish to me. Likewise, referring someone to LFS when they've been quite open about not feeling comfortable with X or Y distro strikes me as an odd proposition - will you be there to offer more constructive support when they run into problems with LFS?

Should anyone 'stick with' gentoo? That's all personal choice. What I can say from experience is that from my first encounter with RH5.1 through to successfully installing gentoo I distrohopped feverishly, ultimately learning very little other than there was more out there than just KDE vs Gnome. For the same reason, I am sticking with arch (alongside gentoo). It's been just under a year now, and I have to say I like the arch way a lot. I have a hunch that it's a 'greener' distro since my box is not pegged at 100% cpu busy compiling source.

Whichever distro you settle on, enjoy it.

Last edited by tj (2008-05-05 11:34:47)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-21 16:23:34

Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#2 2008-04-21 16:33:44

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#3 2008-04-21 16:54:44

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#4 2008-04-21 17:17:09

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#5 2008-04-21 17:25:55

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#6 2008-04-21 17:27:30

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#7 2008-04-21 18:06:12

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#8 2008-04-22 01:41:39

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#9 2008-04-22 02:53:04

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#10 2008-04-22 07:41:29

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#11 2008-04-22 11:33:30

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#12 2008-04-22 17:00:39

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#13 2008-04-22 17:20:22

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#14 2008-04-22 17:27:03

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#15 2008-04-22 18:13:59

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#16 2008-04-22 18:38:37

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#17 2008-04-23 14:31:02

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#18 2008-04-23 15:28:30

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#19 2008-04-23 21:10:59

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#20 2008-04-24 12:25:28

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

#21 2008-05-05 11:27:16

Re: Gentoo scared me back to Arch...

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