Quote Originally Posted by DrPop View Post
Hey Trigggl - is Gentoo hard to setup? Always thought I'd like to try it, but never had a clue where start really. It makes total sense to me - I mean, why not have a "custom OS" for every rig, so it's not loading up stuff it doesn't need and therefore should perform better. I mean, even if it was only like 5% faster...5% on a 24/7 cruncher over a year is a lot!
There is a little bit of a learning curve and it helps to be experienced with command line since that's how most of your install and setup get done. It's especially helpful if you have another box you can ssh from. If you use Putty, you don't even need another Linux box. The handbook is pretty easy to follow as long as you are patient and make sure you read everything.

It's not a distro you begin your Linux experience on. I think the best thing about it is that you're compiling everything for your specific processor. That's what mainly helps your computer to run faster. For instance, on the most recent processor I bought, I compile everything with sse4 support.

I wasn't really interested in Gentoo at first, but it's the only distro I could get to boot the install disc and boot off of the hard drive of my IBM pSeries ppc64. It took me a year or two before I decided to switch my pc to it. It didn't take me long after that to realize I didn't need or want Ubuntu anymore. Now I have everything including a PS3 running it.

If you try it and stick with it, I guarantee you'll know in a year twice as much about Linux and open source as you would otherwise. The Gentoo forum and Bugzilla are your friends.

If you do decide to try it and need help, you can PM me.