Gentoo, Arch...?
 

I've been using GNU/Linux for a while. I used SUSE and now Ubuntu, but now i want to switch to an 'advanced' distro (desktop). I heard about Gentoo and Arch or maybe Free/OpenBSD.
What do you think?

Rather than "switch" to another distro, my suggestion would be to install one or more of these 'advanced' distros, alongside your current one(s) - don't replace what you're comfortable with just yet. Experiment with some other distros and see what you think; try both Arch and Gentoo, and try Slackware while you're at it!

What we think is not really important, when compared to what you think. :)

I switched from Ubuntu to Gentoo after I had issues with Ubuntu (darn Nvidia proprietary driver...)

I am glad I made the choice to do so. If you want to really learn about Linux, and have a couple days, then Gentoo could be the right OS for you.

Although I don't have it personally, I know someone with Arch Linux. It is a higher-level install than Gentoo.

As the previous poster said, leave your existing install in place.

I hope this helps.

Well, thanks for the advice, i'll install it alongside ubuntu. :)
Now, i think that i'm going to download Gentoo first, but is it discontinued? (i saw funtoo, that's why i ask).

And what about *BSD? don't you recommend them?

Speaking only for myself, I can't comment either way about *BSD, as I only ever tried one *BSD and if I remember correctly, I barely had it installed, let alone configured, for long enough to toy with it. I seem to remember it was 'different' than Linux in some way(s) but at that time, I was very new to Linux too, so who knows what I thought was different at that time. :)

No reason not to try a *BSD too, and see what you make of it.

Arch is nice BUT to use it you NEED TO WANT TO LEARN how to .

install it if you do want to push your skills
if you want a "point and click " don't

Gentoo is the same way, i think.

mostly Arch is just getting used to doing things differently
i used Fedora 4 to 11 before switching to Arch .

but Arch base install is very minimal so alot of things will need to be set by hand
so read and reread a few times the Arch wiki guides

As far as i know, in Gentoo you also have to do everything by hand compiling files.

Why do you want an "advanced" distro? If you think you will learn more, remember that all the stuff you have to do manually in Gentoo or Slackware can be done manually in Ubuntu: no-one is going to throw you in jail if you don't use the GUI!

Yeah, but you know, when something doesn't work you just go straight to use the GUI-stuff. If you are in Gentoo (e.g.) and you don't have all those GUI-apps, you have to figured it out how to do what you want from the command line.


:D

And you can use GUIs in the "advanced" distros too.

could be, but first you have to figured it out without them.

Yeah, the CLI approach is useful to know, and interesting. I'm comfortable using either, depending on my mood. :)

I lost interest in gentoo when it appeared to lose its way a while back - ego trips and internal fighting aren't at all attractive. Arch fitted nicely for what I wanted.
Both require you to read the doco. Pretty simple really. How deep you get in the blood and guts of the system is entirely your choice.

I haven't tried Arch or Gentoo yet. I got fed-up with distrohopping before I got round to trying them.

Arch is nice, it's still much higher-level than Gentoo and uses precompiled packages, but it's very minimal and simple (as in small and elegant, not as in simple for noobs to use).

So there's no such a big difference between Ubuntu and Arch (unlike Gentoo -> Ubuntu).

According to DistroWatch, Arch is for competent Linux users and Gentoo is for developers and network professionals.

Now, Gentoo installation is built from source code, does that really make a lot of difference if i'd rather install (e.g. Arch) from pre-built binary packages? would my computer be faster not including features specific to other processors/modules ?

Also, i'd like to download ans install a package "as it is" and not "Ubuntu-ized". :)

So generally that means.. which do you think is better?

I also wonder why people call Gentoo advance.. There's not much difference to it as Slackware and LFS. It's just perhaps that people knew Ubuntu first. Back in the old days, Slackware was even just a normal distro and I also thought that Redhat and the likes were more difficult or less easy to understand.. less hacker friendly.

In most case it will.

What do you mean not "Ubuntu-ized"? Not like Debian-based packages?

Some geniuses can learn Arch immediately without trying other distros. What do you think is more difficult, Arch with docs all around, or DOS? And many people learned DOS on their own before.

I'm not a professional, but i think, for me, Gentoo is better.

"If you want to learn about the inner-workings of a Linux system, Gentoo may be for you.
" :)

Maybe because Gentoo is not so easy to install... :D

Why do you say that it's less hacker friendly?


Packages altered by Ubuntu.

I wasn't around long enough to know that. :)

Wow I'm glad.
If you have time and eager to become an above-average or advanced Linux user, perhaps you can try installing these three distros in order:

Slackware -> LFS -> Gentoo

Slackware is the base so that you'll have a general understanding what Linux really means. LFS is there to ensure that you understand how a Linux system works. And Gentoo will be there for you to go further without limits.

You'll find that LFS is a lot more difficult to handle than Gentoo but it's generally for starters.

Simply because I can't tell what and how packages were installed and how my system was really setup-ed? It's more like being blind if I have things done that way. I also don't have all the tools I needed right away. Slackware for example already has everything I need for starters, to learn and let me be able to play around my system even without connecting to the net. /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs were also a great help.

Gentoo also makes modification but only fixes and some helpers to make the source package compile and install in uniform with the system. Perhaps in most distros also but were does Ubuntu go far?

I would have been really happy if I knew Linux at your age. That would be around 9 years before in high school. I could really think about the naughty things that I could have done with such an ability. DOS was too limited back then. My enthusiasm and hunger for extreme computer skill and knowledge was just choked because of less information. But perhaps learning DOS first instead of Linux gave me more benefit especially with understanding and control in many sides of OS worlds.

Why not going straight with Gentoo?

Aren't they the same? both are built up from source code.

It's your option. I'm just trying to explain why Gentoo is not that difficult.
Gentoo has helpers. For Gentoo, after all configurations are done, it's just as easy as 'emerge -e system' and you have everything built or rebuilt.

LFS is.. well you'll really build it from scatch,... manually. No helper scripts. You'll only have a book that gives you procedures on how to build and install the packages. Sometimes it's really difficult since there are also unexpected errors. Most packages that you'll use in LFS are raw or unpatched by the distro. Some may have patches but you also have to patch them manually. In LFS I mean packages as source packages.

So basically you are creating your own distro with LFS...

The only thing about Gentoo that i saw and didn't like so much is compilling time, takes days!!... So i might do what you said, just getting Gentoo before LFS. ;)

Remember, Gentoo still compiles everything, too!

It's just that in Gentoo a script does it for you and in LFS you type a compilation command for each package.

Ok, thanks for all. I think i'm gonna try Gentoo first.