| 1 |
On Monday 19 February 2007, Mike Adolf wrote: |
| 2 |
> I have been using Linux for several years, but am new to gentoo. I |
| 3 |
> just got a new dell xps 410 system with a intel duo E6400 processor. |
| 4 |
> I have tried all the distros I've used in the past, kubuntu, suse, |
| 5 |
> mandriva. All had problems serious enough to not use them. The |
| 6 |
> problems may stem from using prebuilt x86 distros. Maybe since gentoo |
| 7 |
> is built during install it might have a better chance. |
| 8 |
|
| 9 |
Sorry, but that's never a good reason for using Gentoo. If a binary |
| 10 |
distro compiles every option under the sun then the software will still |
| 11 |
work, but the binaries might be a bit big. Compiling on your machine |
| 12 |
gives no discernable performance benefit for the average user. |
| 13 |
|
| 14 |
Gentoo's strength is in being able to enable or disable individual |
| 15 |
features in each package. So, if you (say) can't stand Red Hat becuase |
| 16 |
it defaults to a Gnome DE, use Gentoo by all mans. If you can't stand |
| 17 |
Red Hat becuase you think it's slow, then you have faulty hardware and |
| 18 |
Gentoo is going to perform about the same... |
| 19 |
|
| 20 |
> What would be the 'best' medium for me, minimal or live CD? I have a |
| 21 |
> high speed connection. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
Doesn't matter, it comes out to the same anyway. The minimal CD has only |
| 24 |
the absolute minimum sources on it, so you have to download the rest. |
| 25 |
The LiveCD gets you up and running in an hour or two, but the packages |
| 26 |
on it are bound to have updates (because OSS projects release early and |
| 27 |
often), so with your first world update you will download new versions. |
| 28 |
|
| 29 |
Use the Live CD if you want to get a working machine quickly. If |
| 30 |
watching gcc output scroll off the screen turns you on (it does for |
| 31 |
most of us around here....) then use the minimal by all means. |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
> Two avoid a typical dual boot install. I would like gentoo to boot |
| 34 |
> from my second hard drive. During boot up, I can now select which HD |
| 35 |
> I want to boot from. Will the install process let me assign a boot |
| 36 |
> disk? |
| 37 |
|
| 38 |
It's been a while since I did a virgin install, so things might have |
| 39 |
changed recently. Back when I did my last install, the process was |
| 40 |
completely different to a binary distro, and one of the steps was to |
| 41 |
partition the disk manually, install grub and edit grub.conf exactly |
| 42 |
the way you want it. So your answer is yes, you can assign boot disks, |
| 43 |
but it isn't a check box you click. But, the latest installers may well |
| 44 |
have changed the entire process |
| 45 |
|
| 46 |
alan |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
-- |
| 49 |
Optimists say the glass is half full, |
| 50 |
Pessimists say the glass is half empty, |
| 51 |
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
Alan McKinnon |
| 54 |
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za |
| 55 |
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five |
| 56 |
-- |
| 57 |
gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
Archives