Just installed my third Gentoo box

[longship]

Control and freedom are essential. I've been messing around with Linux distributions ever since I began using Slackware in about 1994. As usual, chaos takes over my systems and I eventually have to pitch the distribution in favor of something that supports the hardware better, or something to that effect.

Now, with Gentoo, I've found true love. Even cutting edge stuff is available, so new hardware, as long as there's support somewhere, is supported in Gentoo's package management, Portage. For over a decade I've been shedding distributions as I inevitably have to work outside-the-box to get things working the way I want them to. But with Gentoo, I can have my cake and eat it, too.

BTW, Gentoo is not for the newbie or the faint of heart. But if you're a Linux junky and want to control what gets put on your computer, or if you just want everything to be optimized for your specific hardware, Gentoo's your distribution.

Bonuses... The best online Docs and support of any distribution I've used. Between the Documentation, the Forums, and the Wiki, almost every weird situation is covered.

I just did two difficult installs with Gentoo.

1. VIA EPIA MII12000 Mini-ITX motherboard based machine.
2. Cutting edge AMD 64 X2 based machine with all the bells and whistles.

Both went extremely well. If I had been using Debian or some other distribution I would have had to descend into CVS and untested stuff to get the EPIA up and running. There would likely not be support for much of my new AMD 64 X2 box. On Gentoo, all the documentation was available and once things were researched, the installs went without a hitch. I do not think I could have done that with any other distribution. Certainly not Debian or Red Hat. (Ubuntu might have come close.)

So now I've got three Gentoo machines. Good stuff.

[mode13h_net]

1. just don't rsync them all to rsync.gentoo.org!

That'll get them pretty irritated! ;)

I have 8 gentoo boxes on my network/distcc farm, the primary host runs rsyncd and updates gentoo-portage from gentoo.org, the other boxes are directed to the host on the lan. then i give the other boxes a cron job to auto sync to the rsyncd host.

I also blacklist the toolchain, gcc glibc, etc.. from being updated since the 7 other boxes function as distcc slaves, i don't want alternate versions of gcc suddenly popping up on them.

Glad to hear such strong praise of gentoo.

[longship]

2. My new AMD box and comments

ASUS A8N-SLi Premium motherboard (lots of expansion)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
2 GB Corsair dual channel SDRAM
XFX GeForce 6600GT (I don't game)
Twin 74 GB WD Raptor SATA150's (RAID1 /boot, swap, RAID0 /)
Twin 250 GB Hitachi SATA II's (RAID0 /home)
Maxtor 100GB (for / backup, don't want to lose the system if RAID0 fails).
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Sound (No Sound Bluster junk for me)
Hauppauge PVR-250 (I gotta have my Keith Olbermann and my Law and Order)
NEC ND-3550A DVD drive (inexpensive and good)
Seasonic S12-500 PSU (quiet and very efficient)
Lian Li PC-V1000A Plus case (beautiful fit and finish)

It took some doing, but I have everything running perfectly. I really don't think I could have done this with a binary distribution where one has to depart from the package management scheme and custom build some stuff to get cutting edge stuff working. Only Gentoo allows you to do that within the package management. Plus, I don't think any distribution has as strong and flexible support for AMD 64 bit. The multilib environment is incredible. No chroot to 32 bits needed!

Totally satisfying build.