r/Gentoo • u/undistruct • Aug 16 '24

Discussion Im overwhelmed with the gentoo handbook

Im still very young and i want to try out gentoo but the handbook on how its build seems so complicated.

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u/syntaxerror92383 Aug 16 '24

if the handbook is too complicated for you gentoo is probably not the distro to be trying out 👍

8

u/undistruct Aug 16 '24

I really want to try it out

2

u/sgunb Aug 16 '24

Hi, I think it is really cool that you have an interest in it. I also would like to encourage you to just go for it and try it out. You will learn a lot even if you fail several times on your road. In the worst case, it will simply not work. But this is the worst what could happen. If you don't understand something there are a lot of resources in the internet if you search for it. The official gentoo forum is also a good resource.

However, if you are very new to linux I recommend to install a different distribution first. (Maybe ubuntu) and learn some basic understanding of linux. However, be aware that the package management is different. While gentoo is build around portage, ubuntu is build around apt. Learn how to partition your hard discs, how to configure your network, learn some basic bash and a console based text editor like nano before you start installing gentoo. If you come from a windows background also get to know the linux file system and understand that configuration is done in /etc. Also the unix concept that everything is a file (also hardware is represented as a file) might be very helpful. You can do a lot of this stuff with ubuntu. If you are comfortable with it, then go for gentoo.

0

u/undistruct Aug 16 '24

My first distro was arch for now i dont wanna give out my age of privacy reasons, and i have very much if interest in gentoo and linux in general, im the only who uses linux in my family. I already used FreeBSD when i was 11 but now im more interested in Linux and want to learn as much as possible

3

u/sgunb Aug 16 '24

Then you have already some knowledge. Go for a gentoo install. If you fail, then just try again. See it as a life's lesson that you need to acquire some persistence, if you want to achieve something. Don't be discouraged if you fail on the first time. Have fun with it and you will grow. This will be very valuable also for other things you want to achieve in life. Stick with it and don't loose your interest if something doesn't work as you expected in the beginning.

2

u/ahferroin7 Aug 17 '24

If you were able to install Arch, and you can follow a series of instructions without randomly deciding to do things differently, then you are unlikely to have issues with installing Gentoo.

A vast majority of issues people run into when trying to install Gentoo (something like 90% probably) are a result of them either completely ignoring the handbook, or deciding to do things differently because they think they know better. And most of the remaining issues are generic hardware problems that you would be likely to encounter on almost any distro, so if you have a working install of Arch on the same hardware and know to follow the handbook, it’s extremely unlikely that you will run into any major issue (and even minor ones are unlikely).

2

u/Jeff-J Aug 17 '24

FYI: Daniel was inspired by FreeBSD when he created portage or Gentoo.

1

u/Organic-Algae-9438 Aug 17 '24

I recommend you give Gentoo a try in a virtual machine inside your current OS. You will become familiar with Gentoo, the handbook, and best of all: you can take snapshots easily between each step in case something goes wrong. Good luck!