Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Re: Is GWN dead?

[Eric Martin <freak4uxxx@gmail.com>]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> to build other distros. It is not suitable for newbies (disregard the 
> occasional newbie that does get it right, that's a minority and very 
> atypical), and one really does have to have moved beyond the "Oh, look! 
> Shiny installer!" mentality to appreciate it. When you get to that 
> stage, you appreciate that you need a bootstrap system to build the 
> first stages of your own distro, and you can get that bootstrap system 
> from any place you feel like getting it from.
>   
I came to Gentoo at gentoo 1.2 / gentoo 1.4 (I don't remember the year 
but it was around 2002).  I was a GNU/Linux newbie who only knew RedHat 
and didn't quite understand compiling kernels.  Doing the install taught 
me GNU/Linux and I'm better for it.  I think newbies should try it, but 
unfortunately a lot might be turned off because it's 'too much work'.
> Anybody that feels they *need* or *must have* an official Gentoo 
> installer is probably the wrong target market and should be referred to 
> other distros that will suit their needs better. This is not a troll or 
> an elitist statement, it's just recognizing what gentoo is and what it 
> isn't - it's not a distro suitable for someone to whom chroot isn't yet 
> second nature.
>   
I don't think it's an elitist statement, I agree in thinking that we 
shouldn't cater to the lcd.  There are plenty of distros out there that 
work just fine and the greatest thing about FOSS is choice.  If all of 
the options are the same there's no point.  Again though, I have to 
disagree with the point that it's not for somebody whom chroot isn't yet 
second nature: I learned chroot through the install.  I've tried playing 
around with Fedora / Ubunttu but I keep going back to Gentoo; it's my 
favorite distro.

just my $0.02
eric
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