A source-based distribution OS -- Gentoo!

Posted on by AJ Ianozi

Well, after getting off college for winter break, I decided to try something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years now – switch to Gentoo as my primary Operating System.

For those of you that don’t know, Gentoo is a linux-based distribution that relies entirely on source packages. This means that if I wanted firefox, I’d need to download the firefox source code and compile it. Installing Gentoo took a few days, because I had to download the source code of the linux kernel, configure it, and compile it. I had to build the filesystems, everything from scratch.

I think I’ve learned much more about linux than I ever did; I find myself using the console much more, and I recompiled the kernel 3 times so far – it’s fine-tuned for my PC now.

Just yesterday, I was able to get OpenBox running as my default windows manager, and then I installed Tint2 and Trayer for my “taskbar”. I have almost nothing on this box so far; only reason I can type this, is because I just got done compiling/installing FireFox; my only means of communication before then, was talking to some friends in IRC though my console-based system.

Next step is getting Pidgin up and running, and after that, a music player (so far, I’m using mp3blaster) – it’s proving quite a task, since I can’t just download an executable.

But one thing I can say for sure about this new setup: It’s fast!

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