Gentoo linux head first

[BottleNeck.]

Hey ;)
Today I did it ;;
I booted my computer, got greeted with the regular "windows has encouterd a serious error" message ;; Think it was kazaa lite this time.

Burned a gentoo stage 1 cd, printed the guides that I found on their website, and rebooted ;; Just after a message poped up saying windows was ready to download yet another!! security patch.

Did I do right? what will I be facing when i completed the install?
Will i be able to play games (this is important)?

I decided to dive in head first and never look back :)
Im at the "emerge system" stage right now.

Are there any 1337 hacks I should appy that would make my computer go lighting fast? ;)

[JamminJoeyB]

Well I hope you are ready for a major adventure. Gentoo is not really for the linux newbie. But I will offer encouragement. GO FOR IT!!! DON'T LOOK BACK!

Actually you'll want to check the games section of the portage tree. Lots in there to emerge. They got FPS, RPG tons of stuff I tell you.

The gentoo forums are also excelent.

Search the forums here and on the gentoo site for answers before asking. It's probably been asked before.

Are you doing a stage 1, 2 or 3. I think most recomend a stage 2. But then again a stage 3 maybe easier for you.

I have yet to get a gentoo system running. One of these days I will try again. But I am quite happy with Slack and Evil Entity as my testing disto.

One last thing. I hope you don't need you system for anything critical in the next day or so. Gentoo can be a long install.

In case you get totaly stuck on the gentoo install I'll throw in some recomendations on other distros you might want to try first to get your feet wet. Mandrake, Suse are good distro for a start. I consider slackware easy, but some will say it a hard distro to get going.

The only reason I'm considering a gentoo install is that Gentoo seems to stay on the bleeding edge all the time.

[BottleNeck.]

Are you doing a stage 1, 2 or 3. I think most recomend a stage 2. But then again a stage 3 maybe easier for you.

Im doing stage 1 :D

[JamminJoeyB]

I seem to recall a couple of posts on here about the differnce between a stage 1 and 2 is that stage 1 just adds a recompile of the compiler. Not sure if a stage 1 is worth it for that minor benefit. Check the forums and see just how much of this will help with optimizations.

I think the speed gain is just about unnoticable.

[Hayl]

/me agrees. there is no speed gain by doing a stage 1

[zmerlinz]

i have just finished installing gentoo (stage 1) and it is great i really reccomend it

and my computer was pretty much out of action all weekend :p

hope it all goes well for you

[viperlin]

cource there is a speed gain doing stage1, the entirity of software has been compiled, and using the right use flags can increace speed by something like 20% sometimes.

i used to use Mandrake, Mozilla: 6 seconds.

now: Gentoo, correct use flags ans such, Mozilla 2.5 seconds :-D

seriously (-mmx -sse -sse2 -Os) they all help

[Hayl]

Originally posted by viperlin
cource there is a speed gain doing stage1, the entirity of software has been compiled, and using the right use flags can increace speed by something like 20% sometimes.

i used to use Mandrake, Mozilla: 6 seconds.

now: Gentoo, correct use flags ans such, Mozilla 2.5 seconds :-D

seriously (-mmx -sse -sse2 -Os) they all help

the main things that get recompiled on a stage 1 are the compiler and glibc. if you look at the ebuilds for those, many optimizations are stripped out and many such as mmx do not make a difference as they are multimedia flags and nothing to do with the compiler.

the only things you notice a speed increase on with gentoo are things like web browsers and xfree - that reuse a lot of code and are large. everything else, it makes no noticeable difference.

load times are not a very good indication of overall speed of the binaries as hard disk speed, hdparm settings, cache, etc all effect load times. also faster loading apps do not necessarily run faster.

[viperlin]

ok...., my second argument is it takes longer, erm, oh wait..........




(nah but compiling the entire system makes sence to me, so :-P)

not saying your wrong but it still helps a little, eventually it won't matter when you get an upgrade for the baselayout and gcc etc etc etc
:rolleyes:

[nouse66]

you can do stage 2 and 3 from a tarball already compiled for your processor (686, athlon-xp, pentium3, pentium 4). i would guess that if you have a processor that matches one of those then doing a stage 1 would be pointless. maybe i'm wrong but thats what i assumed and did.

also, after you've installed you're eventually going to recompile EVERYTHING all over again. if you dont optimize glibc or gcc or something in the initial install you'll have the chance as soon as theres an updated version anyway and you can tweak it more then.