Exactly. And therefore it goes in a direction that is opposite to the one I favour: I want linux to eventually replace M$, and we are not going to impress Jo Windows'user with distros like Gentoo. However, only a few days after my previous post I am beginning to understand why a distro like Gentoo is good for power users: you create your own OS. I am beginning to do it myself by picking and mixing between the many redhat compatible distros.
I thoroughly enjoyed your post. It has become oh soooo fashionable to pretend you are a geek, even if you are not. Well, I for one consider myself little more than a newbie. My (unusual?) way of learning has been to download all the linux distros that I considered worth trying (some 41 by now) and installing them. This has been my FIRST learning step. With Gentoo I have tried twice, printed their documentation (plenty of wasted ink), but all I can get is: 'no such file or directory' or 'command not found'.They can call me an idiot if they want. Do they like Gentoo? Well, good luck to them! But I don't like comments such as:'Newbies should install Mandrake'. Whilst it is true that any newbie can install Mandrake, it takes years before you become proficient. And that is the beauty of it: you can have a very beautiful, complete linux box up and running in no time, but then you can take all the time in the world to customize and hack it! Do we want more ordinary people to use linux and possibly one day replace Microsoft? Then give me Ark linux everyday! As to the allegation that other linux distros are 'bloated up', it is only nonsense, as you can choose as many or as few packages as you want. And please stop putting Gentoo and Slackware in the same class, because they are NOT! What is so difficult about installing Slackware? And yet you have one of the best distros: fast, stable, not too difficult to customize...
I can hear people saying: 'So what do you like: Mandrake, Ark, Slackware?' My reply: I'd like to see some good common sense in the Linux world!
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Exactly. And therefore it goes in a direction that is opposite to the one I favour: I want linux to eventually replace M$, and we are not going to impress Jo Windows'user with distros like Gentoo. However, only a few days after my previous post I am beginning to understand why a distro like Gentoo is good for power users: you create your own OS. I am beginning to do it myself by picking and mixing between the many redhat compatible distros.
I thoroughly enjoyed your post. It has become oh soooo fashionable to pretend you are a geek, even if you are not. Well, I for one consider myself little more than a newbie. My (unusual?) way of learning has been to download all the linux distros that I considered worth trying (some 41 by now) and installing them. This has been my FIRST learning step. With Gentoo I have tried twice, printed their documentation (plenty of wasted ink), but all I can get is: 'no such file or directory' or 'command not found'.They can call me an idiot if they want. Do they like Gentoo? Well, good luck to them! But I don't like comments such as:'Newbies should install Mandrake'. Whilst it is true that any newbie can install Mandrake, it takes years before you become proficient. And that is the beauty of it: you can have a very beautiful, complete linux box up and running in no time, but then you can take all the time in the world to customize and hack it! Do we want more ordinary people to use linux and possibly one day replace Microsoft? Then give me Ark linux everyday! As to the allegation that other linux distros are 'bloated up', it is only nonsense, as you can choose as many or as few packages as you want. And please stop putting Gentoo and Slackware in the same class, because they are NOT! What is so difficult about installing Slackware? And yet you have one of the best distros: fast, stable, not too difficult to customize... I can hear people saying: 'So what do you like: Mandrake, Ark, Slackware?' My reply: I'd like to see some good common sense in the Linux world!