How do you install this particular distro. I mean im reading a wiki on it and it basically is saying that i have to compile it. Is there any easier way to get this installed as im a newbe just learning and it seems very difficult to get it up and running.

The short answer is no, you compile "everything" if you choose Gentoo. You may want to browse the installation guide for your platform. If you can read and follow directions, installing Gentoo is pretty easy...it just takes awhile.

read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/2006.1/
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...p=3#doc_chap11
you can use packages during the install process however compiling from source is what gentoo's all about. even with ccache it takes about 12 hours of compiling each month
to keep my system up to date.
I using a 2.4 gig northwood on the springdale chipset with 2.5 gigs of ram


Oh yeah did i forget to mention i love gentoo.

You could try Kororaa for a simpler Gentoo install.

gentoo's install is really not difficult (heads up to all newbies). by reading through/ following the handbook youll be able to fix things MUCH easier when they break, becuase youll know what you did to get it onto your system.

im no longer a linux user (ive migrated completely to freebsd), but gentoo is the only distro i can really stand at this point becuase i love the customization power you have. gentoo was what i started with and i went and tried so many major/mid major distros, and its the only one i kept going back to before eventually switching to freebsd.

Gentoo was designed this way.

The installation process has changed over time ... at one time it was normal procedure to compile everything (Stage 1) ... now the Gentoo handbook follows a Stage 3 installation ... the core system is installed from binaries off of the install CD.

This does not take that long to do ... and gets you a working Linux system with very little effort (and along the way you learn about important commands and configuration files).

The point to Gentoo is that applications get compiles for your specific environment ... thus you can optimize your system.
Precompiled binaries that most other distributions may not be optimum for your hardware platform ... so sometimes they may not be the most efficient running.

Gentoo apps are compiled (though there is options to use binaries) ... even the core system files can be recompiled.

Look over the Gentoo Handbook -> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml


By the way ... I have run Gentoo on hardware from PII's to P4's