LinuxAndUbuntu Review Of Gentoo Linux - A Linux Distro For Advanced Users
Table of Contents
Gentoo isn’t a distro for new users. If you want to install Gentoo on your PC or laptop, you must master the Linux terminal. Gentoo could be the hardest distro, but I think that is the most flexible distribution because the number of possibilities in Gentoo is incredible.
I think that Gentoo is very similar to LFS (Linux from scratch), because when you install the system you can build and personalize every part of it.
If we compare Gentoo with UNIX BSD variants, it has many similarities with this latter. For example, FreeBSD it’s a UNIX-based system, and it has a ports collection. If a user wants to install a program in FreeBSD, he must find the corresponding port and compile it.
Gentoo has its own ports system called Portage. Portage has significant advantages over the FreeBSD ports system, like dependency management, accurate tuning packages to suit the administrator, safe uninstall, system profiles, virtual packages, management of configuration files and multiple slots for different versions of the same package. Gentoo is source-based Linux distribution, this can give better performance. Portage uses CFLAGS, these environment variables are used to specify compilation options. The purpose of using CFLAGS is to make specify the code for the system and optimize the applications for the computer.
Portage could be the best package management tool and Gentoo could be the best distro that a new user could know, but the reality is a little different.
If you want to install Gentoo on your computer, you must consider the following aspects:
Gentoo advantages:
2.- The user can personalize each part of the system “easily”.
3.- The package manager “Portage” is very powerful.
4.- The use of CFLAGS variables optimizes applications.
5.- The system performance is very good.
6.- Gentoo supports a lot of processor architectures.
7.- Use Gentoo brings a lot of knowledge.
8.- Gentoo is highly secure, it’s Linux.
Gentoo disadvantages:
Common user problems:
2.- The user doesn’t know how to use the terminal.
3.- The user doesn’t know how to use portage.
4.- The user can’t install applications.
5.- The user doesn’t know how to use the system (Gentoo).
6.- The user doesn’t know how to use Linux.
7.- The user thinks that Gentoo isn’t a good system. Gentoo maybe has only one disadvantage: It needs good hardware.
If you want to be a new Gentoo user, you must do the following:
1.- Master the terminal:
2.- Learn how to build applications.
3.- Read the entire documentation of Gentoo.
4.- Try harder
Conclusion
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