I have recently made the switch to Linux from windows. I tried lots of distros, my favorites being Arch, openSUSE and fedora. I currently use Arch as my daily, I like how it works and the minimal install I really like, one of the main reasons I switched to Linux is I wanted control of my system.
My question is: Is Gentoo worth learning? I feel like it will teach me lots about Linux and about software development, but I am not sure if it is realistic to use as my daily since I have only used Linux for a total of 3 months. I want to learn it not to become my main distro forever, but just to say that I have done it and to learn about Linux quickly. Arch had taught me a lot and I feel like gentoo would accelerator my learning much in the way Arch has.
worth learning? most things are worth learning. worth switching to? probably not, based on above statement.
if you just want to learn enough to say you've done it, why not just fart about in a VM with it and not reinstall everything?
i feel like a big problem with Linux is that people see what others are doing and think they have to somehow keep up with them. as a personal example, i browse r/unixporn a lot, and one of the common post types are people using a window manager by the name of BSPWM. i'm currently running i3, so i already have a keyboard driven WM environment that works perfectly, but i wanted to try to install BSPWM for my own education. i've probably spent about 15 hours in total in a VM, which has probably be reformatted 30 times or more because i kept failing. i would get discouraged and shut the VM down for several days before i would again see these wonderful setups on display and go try again.
it was only recently that i managed to get it working, and do you know what i found? it functions almost identically to what i have now. i sat there for about half and hour, keying my way around the windows, and i realised i was bored. because i had no clear goal in mind other than the vague idea that it'd feel NEW when i got it installed, i got bored very quickly and i don't think i've booted that VM up since.
so unless you've got some goal that needs reaching, like something to do with compiling that will benefit you in the workplace or something of the sort, i would strongly suggest NOT wiping your system and rearranging everything around this new thing, and instead just load it up in a VM, watch some tutorials or what have you, achieve what you feel is enough, and then continue on with Arch.
and if it feels "new" enough to be worth switching, switch.
If you're doing it for performance, it's diminishing returns. Using -O2 with GCC (of which most packages are compiled with) is good enough because how advanced Compilers are these days and using -O3 and adding Cflags and a fomit-frame-pointer gives defeminising returns
I have read though the handbook twice before I made this post have been thinking about it for about a week and thanks for the tip i will study over it a good bit before a try.
Alright will keep in mind, like the statement most things are worth learning good point.
This is my current plan, I want to learn the install and see if I could use it as a daily in a VM before using it as my main OS, I may not ever switch to it, just because i really love arch, but i am considering it.
Alright I can relate to that 110%, I did almost the exact thing then switched back to i3, like exact thing. This was about a month ago. I felt like BSPWM was so pretty and would make me that bit more efficient than i3 only to it being a ton or work for something that had almost no befits to me. I do not have a end goal in mind and no real reason to switch to gentoo. Thanks for the great information, that helped out lots.
Along the lines of studying the handbook well, it may be worth installing Gentoo in a virtual machine first.
Especially if you'll be doing this on your only readily available computer, it'll be rendered useless for a decent while until you compile Xorg successfully.
Is it worth it? Only if you are bored and wish to tinker and have the time to tinker with it. Depending the hardware it can take a day or two realistically to install.
If you just want something that works, then look elsewhere.
I know things like that will happen, going to use older hardware first few times I install it so that I know what I am doing if i ever install it to my laptop or desktop
This is what I was thinking I know it is more of a hassle than what it is worth just for a usable system, but was not sure if learning how it works would be benificial in anyway, Right now I am thinking it will be a good project for another time. The max amount of time i could throw at it right now is maybe 3 hours a day for a week or so, but seems like to much work when I could just read about the things I want to learn,
To put it into perspective. It takes about an hou or a full day to install Firefox depending how fast and how many cores your CPU has... I mean if you are feeling adventurous by all means try to use Gentoo. But the extra speed is not worth the hassle when you can install another distro and get familiar with a package manager faster than installing Gentoo.
Since you have installed arch and are feeling more adventurous then i would recommend you try and compile your own kernel first. That is the second hardest thing to install on gentoo with the first being systemd.
Will you learn anything? Not really. By the time your ready to install gentoo then you will almost certanily know enough about linux that gentoo wont teach you anything. If you feel like learning then i would do something like a LFS build. LFS would be at a low enough level that you would learn the interworkings of linux vs watching gentoo just automagiccly compile a bunch of code without you know what it is doing under the hood. Only thing you learn from installing gentoo is howto install gentoo
Gentoo can be a fun experince in a twisted way. You will almost guarantee fail your gentoo build the first time and maybe a couple more after that. When you do manage to get it working then you will look back at the past failures and rejoice because of the battle you won. After all of that you can finally say "I did" when people tell you to install gentoo
A few tips too keep in mind if you ever do install gentoo 1. Expect failure at all time 2. Do a OpenRC install to learn howto install gentoo 3. You dont have to compile everything. If your short on time then dont compile firefox but instead just install the binary version
What's your long term goal? Do you want to be a developer, system admin, network admin, scientist? Work towards your goal and learn the necessary things that come up along the way. There is so much out there, you can waist lifetimes on a plethora of things, but unless you use it, you'll soon forget it.
Arch is pretty much the ultimate distro, imho. I see no reason for hopping - other than fun. There are so many linux tools and subsystems to learn, you don't have to focus on the installation part.
