From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1GU6DH-0005fj-TJ for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 01 Oct 2006 18:38:56 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.8/8.13.6) with SMTP id k91IauT0000374; Sun, 1 Oct 2006 18:36:56 GMT Received: from py-out-1112.google.com (py-out-1112.google.com [64.233.166.179]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.8/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k91IUgdE023975 for ; Sun, 1 Oct 2006 18:30:43 GMT Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id d42so1696504pyd for ; Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:30:42 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=dCskz2CWy3XtFHEwEGmg8kRbNB3BJDvq2L/ncLxMQbvklqbF9UNICMHpScjab19orjKd30HgUuPH4HrMnrw9/2axJBP2UUXjmKPWKGHjvOTs4vyBjDEQqbr7s8H/OGo8v2v+PXHpJIvqG2/8S/6zig24y+jsuNA4P5vhX02Rq24= Received: by 10.65.214.2 with SMTP id r2mr5948452qbq; Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:30:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.156.16 with HTTP; Sun, 1 Oct 2006 11:30:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <5bdc1c8b0610011130s4c806fc7n90270fd898229d2f@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 11:30:42 -0700 From: "Mark Knecht" To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Possible new gentoo user In-Reply-To: <45200419.7030801@comcast.net> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <45200419.7030801@comcast.net> X-Archives-Salt: 007aff3a-a686-4935-b90c-9db36d75d0f2 X-Archives-Hash: 92f4c4a0a594ea65999c206f9ec44187 On 10/1/06, Terry Eck wrote: > I've been a SuSE user for several years now currently running 10.0. > I'm interested in giving gentoo a try with the object of converting > from SuSE to gentoo. I've been looking at this list for a couple of > weeks and have determined that there may be a steep learning curve > on my part converting. Any words of advice on getting up to speed > using gentoo before I install it. > > Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me. > > Terry Eck > Hi Terry, I'm a non-developer, non-sysadmin, Linux-user type. I was pretty scared of Gentoo when I started a few years ago. (2002 or 2003?) Actually, it turned out to not be that difficult once you got into the swing of things. One thing I think you'll appreciate once you get used to it is the quality of the Gentoo documentation. It's really great stuff and seldom leads you astray. Read it carefully and you'll usually get things right pretty quickly. As for installing Gentoo, since you are building most everything from scratch it does take a few days the first time you do it to get to a usable desktop with applications installed and running. It gets faster over time but my machines always take me a day at least before I'm running a browser inside of Gnome. Read and follow the Quick Install guide and it will work. Use a test machine if you have one for your first install. Once converted to Gentoo you'll love that you never really do upgrades. Just updates. Portage is really nice at keeping things up to date. Run stable packages (i.e. - not ~x86 or ~amd64) unless you need a specific package, at least to start. In my mind there is little value to running a testing package unless you have a specific problem or need a specific new feature. Testing packages become stable package pretty quickly so you'll have it in a few weeks anyway. I must say that EVERYTHING I learned about Gentoo that mattered came from the generous folks on this list. Read the docs and then feel free to ask questions. Answers here seem to be the least confrontational, most informative of pretty much any Linux list I've ever subscribed to. Get GMail or some email client that is good at threading conversation. Email traffic on this list gets a bit high at time. GMail makes it work well for me. Keep in mind that if dummies like me can make Gentoo work, and I have - my wife, my son, my 78 year old father and 77 year old mother all run Gentoo now - then I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all. Hope this helps, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list