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10-Day Gentoo Installation Agony
lisah writes, "The Linux distribution Gentoo has a hard-core following, and with good reason. Gentoo is known for its configurability and choices. It's not known, however, for its easy installation. NewsForge's Joe Barr outlined his painful installation experience with Gentoo in an article that explains why, after 10 days, he finally gave up and went with Debian Etch. From the article: '[B]ack in the day, Gentoo users first had to rip the source code from the bone with their teeth before compiling and installing it, but now the live CD had sissified the process to the point that anyone could do it... I exaggerated the ease of installing Gentoo.' And: 'Gentoo doesn't ask what it can do to make things easier, it asks you exactly what it is that you want it to do, and then does precisely and only that.'" Slashdot and NewsForge are both owned by OSTG.
My install experience with gentoo took less time than that and I spent 3 days figuring out that my motherboard was defective.
I guess he'll understand when I don't read TFA
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
Last night I had the joy of installing Red Hat 7.3 for my Unix Administration class with a two-disc set provided in the Thompson book. Everything was fine until it asked for a third disc. Needless to say, after 25 minutes of loading, I was so screwed. Rebooted, tried to recover, so out of luck. Worst, the hard drive was hosed. I haven't had that much fun since when Red Hat 7.3 was current.
It's really not complicated, just tedious.
/dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && . /etc/profile && emerge sync && cd /usr/portage && scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system && emerge vim && vi /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd /usr/src/linux && make menuconfig && make install modules_install && emerge gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp /boot/grub/grub.conf.sample /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi /boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6
Heck, it doesn't even have to be that tedious.
From bash.org:
it only takes three commands to install Gentoo
cfdisk
that's the first one
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You wear wraparound sunglasses, even indoors. You wish your mother would let you ride a motorbike. You tell your friends you're pulling in $50,000 a year and $2,000 a month "playing the stock market" but in reality you're only bringing in half that and your dividends from MSFT havn't been good in years. Your non computing friends all turn to you for help; you only charge $30 an hour. Your collegues talk about you behind your back. Your workplace nickname is likely to be "The Asshole". Unlike the Linux fanboys, you actually try to pick up dates in bars but women laugh at you.
You think you're so cool you hurt. You have mirrors on every wall in your "loft apartment", which is really a grimy little apartment next to a guy who plays Guns 'n Roses at 3am. All of your furniture is from Ikea. You sometimes think that changing your name to "Steve" would be "pretty cool". When you go to bars you only drink Miller Lite. No body ever asks you for help with their computers because they know you don't know anything but OS X, even if you do tell them you "run Unix" now. Your friends openly laugh at you.
You regularly give $10 bills to homeless guys because you have too much money. Computers baffle you, but you enjoy looking at pictures of naked women. You don't know what Linux is, but you continually bugged the IT guy at work about your computer he installed Linspire on your machine.
You shop at GAP. You probably used to use a Mac. When you saw the multiracial image used as a desktop picture and heard that this operating system came from the same country as Nelson Mandella, you knew it was for you. You meet with your friends in fair-trade coffee houses and talk about the eventual overthrow of evil corporations such as Microsoft and Starbucks. Like the Linspire user, you have very little real knowlege when it comes to computers but you would never use your computer to look at pictures of women degrading themselves.
You've been "into computers" for ohh, one or two years now and fancy yourself as "a bit of a hacker". Wouldn't know C from C++, or even Perl for that matter. Older Gentoy users may be building their homes from matchsticks. You've explained to all your friends that your matchstick house will have an "optimised floorplan". They've tried to tell you that your house violates every known building code and law in your area, but you've ignored them so far because you can't read those complicated regulatory documents.
Much like the Gentoy user but you'd also be into sadomasochistic sex if you could get it. You're not just building a house from matchsticks, you're planing to grow the trees to make the matchsticks. You've cleared some land but don't know what to do next because you havn't read the books you've got, so you've posted to alt.arborists.newbie asking for help. It's been three days so far and no one has replied. You remain hopeful.
No, because unlike posting linux distyro flames, masturbation generally doesn't hurt anyone. Except for kittens. We all know God kills a kitten every time you masturbate. Little known fact: every time you install gentoo, God kills a cockroach.
But seriously, Gentoo users are generally like "ricers," gearheads who put park bench rear wings onto toyota celicas. They focus far too much attention on getting far too little benefit, when there are better solutions out there. When was the last time you heard of some big corporation going with gentoo? Never, because big corporations don't have that kind of time to waste.
But if you do have some spare time, give it a try. You will learn something. Gentoo is a gearhead's distro. Just because 9 out of 10 gentoo users are like ricers who haven't the foggiest idea what they are doing or why, that doesn't mean that someone smart and motivated can't get something out of it. I did. I wouldn't use it as my primary desktop distro, but for getting into the nuts and bolts of the applications you use, there's nothing like it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
BONG
That was the sound of the "overused clichê" anvil falling on you from a great height.
STOMP STOMP STOMP!
That was the sound of the grammar nazis marching in to take you for using the wrong accént.