I was wondering if anyone uses Gentoo Linux. I am curious and I think I am going to try to install it and give it a test drive. Does anyone have an opinion on Gentoo Linux?

check here

http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...ort=1&thecat=9

i am a newb, not really all that good with linux. i stepped thru a gentoo stage 2 install- i had problems, but the great documentation and the helpful people in the gentoo forum got me thru. i like gentoo a bunch, learned a bunch, and its now my linux desktop.
doing gentoo is time consuming as you are compiling everything
and downloading all the software . hopefully you have a broadband connection, that will help.
i dont know your linux experience level- read the online docs carefully, read thru the forum posts to get a feel for problems and solutions. be prepared to configure your hardware by command ine, not gui. be prepared-you get a succesful install, now you have to "emerge" your desktop/wm and your software packages.
if you try it, i'm sure you will enjoy it and will find gentoo an excellent linux. its very customizable, for newbs or experienced users.

i was using mandrake 9.1 as my first "real" linux for a few weeks. i tried suse+redhat a few years ago, but never really worked with it. now, a few weeks ago, i decided to switch to gentoo 1.4. well, installation is not as complex as one may think. it's well documentated, and as long as you don't have any very extra-ordinary or brand-new hardware there shouldn't be many probs. one thing you really need is time. on my athlon xp 2200+ the install of the system and X11 took one night, and then another night for kde, openoffice, mozilla and some other smaller stuff. but once you've installed all those big apps, you're through it and most other apps are just a few mbytes and take only a few minutes to compile/install.

gentoo is perfect if you really want to learn how linux works. you have to do a lot for yourself, but everything is well documentated and there are many useful scripts that make things a lot easier - but still you learn how it works.

installing software has never been so easy. for example, if you want to install xmms, you just type "emerge xmms" in the console and gentoo will download, compile, configure and install an up-to-date xmms and all dependencies for you. all apps i'm using are pretty well configured and i never had serious or problems compiling anything.

one big advantage: gentoo is really fast. for example, with mandrake, when i was watching large flash animations in mozilla, i had a really low frame rate, with gentoo, flash anis are damn smooth. the lmule progress bar's have always been flickering around in mandrake, in gentoo they don't. you can tell gentoo to really install only the things you really need, so many apps get smaller, faster and more stable.

i can recommend gentoo to anyone who

1) is a linux expert and wants a 100% configurable, fast, stable, "geeky" distro
2) linux-users who are willing to and who have time to learn how linux works

i was always working with windows, then i installed mandrake, deleted my windows partition 2 days later, and now i fell in love with gentoo! it's sooo cool!

tom

elektrohirn, why don't you post that as a review?