hi ..
i downloaded and burned the latest version of the Gentoo linux from their website and bootef the system to get it installed .... but was a bit shocked to c that all the installation will be made from the command line .. being a newbie i dont wanna ruin my system by making a mistake in command options ...
i wanted to know if there is any Graphical Installer for Gentoo linux ... an installer that can guide me in the process ... like Fedora and SuSe and almost all the distros have ..
i know Gentoo gives alot of choices for the user so that the system can be configured compeltely according to the users needs but it really is a bit Hard i must say


so do we have a Graphical Installer on the Universal install CD for Gentoo ?

A graphical installer is on its way, but it isn't ready yet. Even though you have to do the installation through the command line, you are guided pretty well by the handbook (which I found you had to follow extremely closely!).

well i read some reviews abt this after the first post and i think i should accept the challenge of installing it ... but is it worth it ? i mean is it really good ?
ive used Ubuntu Alot and its rally really good .. it got me completely switched from Winxp to Linux .. currently iam on FC-4 and its also good .. iam a newbie but a good one ...
so my question again is ... is it worth it ?

I'm actually right now in the middle of installing Gentoo for the first time. I must agree with Nylex, the handbook is pretty thorough and so far I haven't had any nasty surprises. Of course it takes quite a while to get it all up and running, but I look at it this way, it gives me, being a newbie, a good chance to get a feel of what's going on "behind the scenes" compared to just running a graphical installation... I'll return soon and try to give you a comment on my first experiences with Gentoo switching from (K)Ubuntu.

Cheers!

VidaLinux is Gentoo Stage 3 with a graphical installer. It is pretty straightforward to install.

Read the gentoo site and I can almost guarantee you will not have a problem.

ZackTheSpacestation ... dude ill be waiting Anxiously for ur reply ... i wanna know how ur experience went .. does gentoo require downloading from the internet to get completely installed ? and if does not have a decent net connection like me , how loong does it take to install it ?

Ok, it depends on what you mean by "worth it". What exactly are you expecting?

There are some advatages to compiling everything on your machine, but there are also some drawbacks (mostly time).

If you are primarily interested in learning how to compile software (Gentoo creedo...if it moves, compile it), then Gentoo is "worth it". If you're expecting some magically fast OS, you may be a tad disappointed as there are other ways to get a fast system without compiling the entire OS from scratch and any properly configured system with all of the bloat removed will run well.

The speed differences are small compared to some other distros. I find that Slack runs just as fast without the need to compile everything. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way putting down Gentoo as it's a very good distro. When I tried it I was impressed by the size of the repository and most of the packages were well put together (a few had problems). But frankly, I quickly grew tired of all of the compiling times.

Gentoo will provide a good learning experience, and will definately perform better than your current distro, but plan on a large time investment and don't expect "magic". In the end, it's a Linux distro, albeit a good one.

Daejavu: I hate to state the obvious but a lot of people don't realise this before they start a Gentoo install so I'll just make sure you're clear on this. On your machine (as briefly outlined in your profile), a Gentoo install with KDE or GNOME will take a couple of days. Installing Mozilla Firefox (from source) will take you a good few hours. Everything is compiled from source code, that is very slow. OpenOffice, expect it to take about 4 hours to install. A new version of your software is released and you want to upgrade? You have to compile everything again.

Now Gentoo can be a cool distro, but if you really are such a newbie you sure that's what you want? I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into If you want to search Google for Vidalinux as XavierP mentioned, that is just a stage 3 Gentoo install and it has a GUI installer. It's much easier and in the end you have a working Gentoo system if you sync your Vidalinux portage with the Gentoo servers.

cs-cam .... dude thanks for making that clear ...actually i was just informed abt this by one of the ppl from irc session and u made it clear as well preety well ...

welll being a newbie i dont think i wanna do so much compilings and stuff ... waiting for a small software to be installed can take hrs is painful indeed .. so i think i should keep myself to my current ubuntu ... no offence to Gentoo .. their community is awesome with ppl helping alot ..
as for the VidaLinux ... i checked it and it was cool .. since its a Gentoo stage3 ... does it also requires time consuming compilations after installation (once whole system is setup) ?.

While Gentoo GUI installer is on its way, you could perhaps discover some things about Gentoo using simple LiveCD. (Gentoo Based) like Jintoo.
http://www.kotek.org/jintoo/screenshots.php

what is the main diff between Ubuntu and Gentoo ? if i install it ... is there anything that Gentoo will offer that is not in Ubuntu cause after all .. both of them are linux ...



(by more i mean like more softwares , compataibility , net protection , speed and stuff)

Do yourself a favour and try Vlos first before trying to install Gentoo.
This will give you a chance to get your feet wet with Gentoo without wasting too much time and effort.

You could give this a try

Pete

is Gentoo and Vlos RPM based or Debian based .. or it has its own format ..?

maybe just compile the source for everything i think !