Why I like Gentoo.

In the beginning I started using Gentoo more as a joke, and then somewhere along the line it stopped being a joke.

What makes Gentoo different than most linux distros?

Gentoo is a linux distribution where its flagship feature is that everything is compiled from source. This essentially means that rather than downloading pre-compiled binaries from any given repository, your cpu is... well from source, compiling all the code specifically to your hardware, rather than a more universal binary download. For some this is enough to turn them away from Gentoo as it would turn say a 2 minuet install process of any given software, to perhaps a multi-hour install depending on your allocated cpu threads. However most notably if you ever decide to seriously try out Gentoo, you'll have to compile the whole Operating system which generally speaking will take multiple hours, so be ready to just start the compile process before bed or your workday.

Some people will call me crazy, but this is actually why I like Gentoo, its really great for learning. With the power of such detailed control, you can actually understand your machine much better, and even make it more secure/efficient. Let me just give a very basic example, my Gentoo system on my laptop is a X86-64 architecture cpu, so I can just refuse all incoming code related to ARM64 through the kernel. Vise-versa on my GenPi4B, I can just turn off all X86-64 related incoming code during the compile process. This is really great not only for "efficiency", but more importantly security, as I remove dead code that would never be used anyways on my computer. Furthermore learning the Useflags feature is also great for understanding any new software you may be interested in downloading. Reading default useflags you'll find the features you would "expect" from your software, but commonly you'll find features maybe you'd like to add. When I was configuring my NAS system on my GenPi, I remember I had to recompile my graphical file manager with the samba flag in order to enable a "simple" drag and drop of files from one computer to another across my network. Typically this may be automatically enabled, on my Mint machine, the default file manager is Nemo, and this is automatically enabled. Sure it was very convenient, however Gentoo forcing me to enable this on my own, forced me to further understand and learn how my NAS system worked across my network, and I'm really grateful for that.

Why you should try out Gentoo, and how to go about it.

Gentoo as stated earlier is actually really great for learning not just linux at a fast rate, but also just how your overall machine operates. However with such amazing benefits, comes great cost. It will be very frusturating at times and probably overwhelming. When I finally got my first Gentoo system up and running, it had taken me roughly three weeks of just restarting the whole install process after I would accidentally lock myself out somehow, or just completely break something. Granted the three weeks is a little inflated because I would just abandon all hope for a few days at times and then try again later. So obviously if you decide to use Gentoo, you should start off on say a secondary computer like a laptop, maybe a virtual machine. Something that won't interupt your daily workflow, because Gentoo in best case scenario WILL interupt your daily activities by simple nature of how it works. So, you want to be in a position to just walk away at any given moment and return later.

I've mentioned this quite a few times already, but Gentoo is really great for learning linux and computers in general. I've used Mint for a pretty long time, this isn't a complaint but an observation. Mint is so user friendly, that I never really had to dig deep or work hard to get anything setup or working properly. However with Gentoo it has forced me to understand everything because simply it wouldn't work otherwise. As soon as I started using Gentoo, honestly, ever since I've had a revolutionary boom in not just learning, but perhaps even lifestyle. Struggle is a beautiful action to be honest.

Ok Admittedly maybe Gentoo isn't for everyone.

So this goes without saying but you do need to have a lot of patience when dealing with this distribution. That's ok, if Gentoo isn't for you that's totally fine. I mentioned this on my Mint page, but honestly most of what you can do in one distribution of linux, quite honestly you can do the same in any other. I say most, because I'm not sure you can really configure the kernel itself quite so easily as you can with Gentoo. But that's not a problem actually! If you really care for that level of configuration to your kernel but don't quite want to install a full blown Gentoo system, you can just install a Gentoo kernel and have the rest of your operating system be Mint for example.

At some point I'll have a walkthrough of installing Gentoo on what will be my third Gentoo machine. This will be related to my Libreboot project on my T420 Thinkpad. I mention this because even though Gentoo can come off as "too much". Seeing the process and semi-understanding what's going on alone, can stil be a great learning experience.