A Great Operating System: Gentoo Get involved with linux, its good

[melkonianarg 0]

I thought I would start this topic to inform newbies to the linux world, or anyone else that is careful before going and switching to an Operating System they have no prior experience in, and to maybe sway some people on this forum to change to a free, community basd O.S based on the linux kernel: GENTOO

 

Here's my story:

 

I am a student in the UK, and I recently received a laptop for my birthday, although I was able to choose it...The fact is that I had a price limit, so I wanted to spend as much as possible on the hardware and tried to avoid paying for software/os's that I knew I could find free replacements for...so naturally, I chose not to buy windows XP with the laptop and opted for a free alternative, linux...

 

Now here comes the fun part: there are over 50 linux distributions that I know of, and the the beauty of the kernel is that anyone can make an OS out of it, therefore the number of OS's based on the linux kernel are constantly growing...SO, I had to choose...

 

Many people opt, with there first ever linux install, to go for what is known as a 'user friendly' distro, i.e. very little text-based configuration...lots of graphical-user-interfaces, and usually this distro is Ubuntu, HOWEVER...being intrigued to learn about the kernel a bit more and generally about the whole 'linux' thing, I opted for a rather less friendly distro, Gentoo, that is after finding out which was going to suit my needs most...

 

And infact, after only TWO attempts, I had a fully working text-based OS, and I was pretty prowd of that, hehe but after that, things really did not get too difficult at all...this was all down to one thing...community help, i.e. forums and irc chat...even a really old thing called putty, which I used to communicate with a gentu guru after my install...

 

Anyway, after installing, there were alot of things left to do, that you would not have to do with a windows based pc, i.e. setting up the display for a GUI, and geting USB ports to mount, and most importantly, getting networking and internet connections to work, which is a must that you are able to download applications directly after your install...

 

...And right now, I am sitting at my desk, typing to you from my gentoo-run HP Pavilion DV1108EA laptop, and everything I need is up and running...

 

So if anyone was worried about install any linux distros, don't be, because quite frankly, my dog could...if she could reach the keyboard...hehe

 

GOOD LUCK ANYONE THAT NOW GOES OFF AND INSTALL LINUX ON THEIR MACHINE, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T NEED IT

 

Further information is avaible at the following websites:

 

Gentoo Homepage

 

A List of Ebuild available for Portage

 

What is Portage?

 

The Gentoo Wiki - VERY Useful

 

The Gentoo Community FORUMS

 

Notice from BuffaloHELP:

Moving topic from Computers to Computers > Software > Operating Systems

Edited August 17, 2005 by BuffaloHELP (see edit history)

[biscuitrat 0]

The Gentoo site is very blurry and the text is tiny thanks to some CSS error. I am confooooozed.

[Brionne 0]

Is there any special way on getting the Linuz operating system, is it like free or something or do you have to pay for it, and if you do have to pay for it where can you buy it? If it's free where can I get it?

[fffanatics 0]

Is there any special way on getting the Linuz operating system

To answer your question, there is two ways to get a Linux OS. You can either download a version of it free legally off of their website or through a hosted torrent file that is put out by the distro or you can buy one of their boxed version either in a store or from the website. The differences is that a boxed version would have more software that contains licenses that they are not legally allowed to put out for free like MP3 support, etc. However, if you know how to set up and use linux, you can get software from the web that is freeware that allows you to use those.

Also, I personally do not use Gentoo because of the lengthy setup process. I too am a college student but i did not have the time or the amount of bandwidth required to install Gentoo since it downloads the sources and then compiles and installs all the software. Gentoo is a distro recommended for advanced linux users because of the setup and the way it does things. However, since the code is compuled on your computer it is the quickest os. If you are a newbie i recommend Suse Linux because it is easy to install, tons of people use it so there are many forums, and finally it is a very good way for beginners to learn linux.

[melkonianarg 0]

Also to answer the question 'is it free?', well yes and no...Many very good linux distros do infact come at a price, like redhat or suse, but then again, some dont like ubuntu debian gentoo to name but some...For the person that said setting up gentoo was a lengthy proccess, I would have to ask the question : What part, installing or getting hardware and internet to work after install? The install was generally problem free and I was able to do it within a day...getting a GUI setup and everything after that took me closer to 4-5 days, but i learnt so much it was unimaginable, so if you wan to learn about linux, and be able to use your OS from the command line like me, please do try gentoo...but if not stick with ubuntu, or something like that...hope that covers some of the questions asked...regards,melkonianarg

[pawitp 0]

Many very good linux distros do infact come at a price, like redhat or suse, but then again, some dont like ubuntu debian gentoo to name but some...

Eventough some come at a price. They all come Free (as in freedom). You have the right to have the source code of GNU software(if you have the binary).