Gentoo.realy very hard distro.but the most beautifull and will learn you a lot of things only just trying to install it!!!!!!!!!my fisrt distro was ubuntu.i was not really learn a lot of things.i was hearing for bugs kernels,hdd mount.what are all this things??????when i try gentoo i really understand why linux is hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!flags,config to kernel,graphical?????not yet.try to love your terminal!!!the black screen with big white letters became my best friend!!!!after that i really learn a lot of things at linux.but the most important thing i learn was that the most beautifull thing is to have an operating system,all with your passion.to try hard for this and know better from anywone his wicknesses and his requirements.if you want really to die in your keyboard try to install gentoo.is really a very big experiense.the happyness will come months after your first installation try but really worth

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http://tinfoilhat.shmoo.com/ ...

Yes, it is true. Most distros use "make" to build a kernel. Debian, OTOH, has a pretty nice tool that does the make and then creates a .deb file for you. It's not harder (I'd say it's actually easier) but it is different.

Hahaha, not to bring up an old post back to life, but I"m currently using Arch Linux, honestly, to me, it was just as easy to install as (K)Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE, I currently trying out Gentoo in a Virtual Machine, to me, this has been the hardest to learn, everything is compiled by you, took 2 hours to install/compile Gentoo, and man, can't tell you how long it took to compile KDE..

Please don't drag up old threads like this.

Heh, yeah, sorry, I just happened upon it in Google, it didn't say [resolved] in Topic Line, so figured it was still an ongoing post..

Linux from scratch may be the hardest but since it isn't a distro, I'd then have to say Gentoo.

i'd say something like lfs, gentoo, arch...
i've never used them but from what i hear, you essentially have to compile everything.

next i would think something like busybox would be hard to master. (i think that is what my lg blu-ray player runs)

Arch, there's no compiling, you do start out in a Terminal, but it's all easy, for example:

By the way, currently running Arch as we speak, running Gentoo in Virtualbox.

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in my 10+ years of using linux, I pretty much tried them all except Gentoo and LFS. Not because they're hard, it's the amount of compiling that is involved. I don't have that kind of patience.

Maybe one day if I get a second generation i7 desktop, I might opt to install Gentoo first.

Yeah, not to diss Arch, but I'm not really liking this, it runs good for a few days, then it starts acting up, things just don't stay running and stay stable. I'm still compiling stuff in Gentoo in Virtualbox as we speak, been over a day now, hahaha.. ANd it's only been a few years for me, I've impressed most people, it's been about 3 years I'd say. I merged from Windows, lets not even go there, LOL, then I merged to Kubuntu.. Kubuntu is excellent for new Linux Users, I was getting too advanced for that, then, and currently merged to Arch Linux, now I'm trying out Gentoo in a VM, I was playing WoW(World of Warcraft)in a private server, and it's ran in Gentoo, loved how well it ran, and was stable, so I decided to give Gentoo a try.. I personally like the command line, so yeah, Arch is a lot of command line at first, but Gentoo is even more command line. I never checked out LFS though, in fact, didn't know of it's existence. Let me tell you though, Gentoo has been a hair puller, LOL.. I keep getting all these errors when trying to get KDE installed, Gentoo installed 100% Successfully..

That's the best thing about linux. You try distro after distro and BINGO -- one distro will shine for you.

LOLOLOL, that Black screen? I call the Big Black Monster, =P.

In future, please look at the date on the post.

Hahahaha, yeah, 2003, it's a wonder this topic hasn't been deleted yet.