My Operating System: Gentoo Linux
After laughing at most of the quotes from other Gentoo users, I thought it would be wise to state the reasons I’ve chosen to use Gentoo as my operating system.
Most people state they use Gentoo because you can compile everything from source. I don’t see that providing much of a benefit. Sure, it may reduce the size of some binaries and may offer a slight performance advantage, but I’m not sure you will see a noticeable difference between a properly setup Gentoo system and a properly setup Debian system.
Mainly, I use Gentoo because I love to tinker with my computer. Unlike what many Gentoo users say, all of this can be done with other distributions. It’s just that I find it easier to mess around with a Gentoo setup than binary based distributions. Because you are forced to setup some configuration files (xorg.conf), I find it easier to diagnose and fix problems that occur.
The other main reason, and perhaps the most important reason, is the huge Gentoo documentation and great Gentoo Forumsgentoo. Most, if not all basic problems, can be solved by simply searching the forums. Sure, other distributions have similar forums, but I find Gentoo’s to cover more topics and provide better help.
The downside to Gentoo. It takes a long time to setup and install applications. It isn’t the most user friendly (etc-update). However, once you get going, your computer will run more smoothly than you could ever dream of.
I’ll post a detailed description of my system in the upcomming days.