Why Gentoo

Intro

Gentoo is a source based distribution. This means programs are installed from source and compiled on the user’s machine which brings advantages and disadvantages to the user.

Describing Gentoo as just this is simplifying it way too much. There is a lot that goes into this distribution.

Difficult?

Many people consider it the hardest or one of the hardest Linux distributions as it requires a more advanced knowledge of Linux than most other distros. You need to understand partitions, chroot, how to install the kernel, and how to install the bootloader.

I personally don’t think Gentoo is that hard, the thing I found the most difficult on my first install was setting up the bootloader, and the reason for it is because I skipped a few steps (I did not see them.). It seems that the reputation for Gentoo’s difficulty comes from the stage 1 and stage 2 days, but those haven’t been used since 2007.

The stage file

The stage file is a file containing the necessary system files to install Gentoo.
Currently Gentoo’s installation handbook uses a stage 3 file which contains all the necessary system tools. Stages 1 and 2 are not used anymore and used to provide a lot less than stage 3 making the installation hard.

The installation

The installation process is very detailed in the Gentoo handbook and consists of a few very well documented steps.

In a very simple way all you do after partitioning is unpacking the stage file, chroot into it, config some stuff, install a kernel, install a bootloader and you are done.
It does take a while and you might fail a few times, but once you finish it, its really not that bad.

My reasons to use Gentoo

Performance

Starting off with (probably) the most common reason to use this OS.
The compilation aspect of the distro and the options it gives, each package will be compiled for your specific CPU ensuring it squeezes the most out of your machine.

There are a bunch of options on your make.conf file which is just a list of flags to apply to everything you compile, including compiler flags and USE flags which can affect dependencies, package size and runtime performance. With enough knowledge you can make a system that is both minimal and performant.

Tools

I don’t hear a lot of people talk about this but Gentoo has the best tools out of any distro!
Gentoo’s tools allow you to easily make a complex task on your system that would require a lot of steps on other distros. For example, you can handle multiple kernels with eselect, simply list them with eselect kernel list and set the one you want with eselect kernel set.

There are a lot of eselect tools, you can use eselect to handle your kernels, repositories, fonts and a bunch of other stuff. Its a very easy multi-purpose configuration and management tool.

Gentoo’s package manager (portage) is one of the best I’ve seen, having the ability to install multiple packages at the same time and the ability to customize flags, which again let you do so much, including limiting the resources used by the package manager.

Customization

This is a big one for many people.
Gentoo’s customization tops most distros, including arch, the customization is actually so big that even when you first get that stage3 file you can choose between systemd and open-rc as the init system.

One thing I particularly like is getting doas instead of sudo. And for comparison, on arch, sudo is something that cant be uninstalled which is pretty annoying.

On Gentoo you can handle all system dependencies with use flags ensuring the system is exactly how you want, and this is all made simple with the help of its tools.

The process of configuring and compiling a kernel is also decently easy to get started on Gentoo as its all handled by its package manager, all you need is the Gentoo-sources package which contain the Linux kernel with Gentoo patches, ensuring compatibility with the distro.
After downloading the kernel you select it with the eselect tool, then cd into ´/usr/src/Linux/´, after that you can customize the kernel with the ncurses menu provided with make nconfig.

Documentation

The final reason why I use Gentoo, is the wiki.
The Gentoo wiki is very well written telling you how to use system tools, how to configure a kernel and how to use many many apps. Its so big that it can be very useful even if you use other distros.

Final thoughts

I use Linux for about 3 or 4 years at the time of writing this and I daily drive Gentoo for 7 months.
Over this whole time I only cared about Linux as an OS, I’ve been using arch for a long time, because it was quick and the AUR solved a lot of my problems finding stuff. But recently I really started caring about Linux more as a hobby, and Gentoo really helps me learn more about it.

Gentoo is definitely not as hard as it seems. The handbook might look intimidating at first but its so well written and so easy to understand that if you pay the attention necessary, the install process will go smooth.

The compile times of Gentoo are the perfect excuse to get off the computer, workout and do other things that you might enjoy doing.

I wouldn’t recommend Gentoo to someone that is simply looking for an OS for school and some casual computing, but if you like learning about Linux and you don’t mind waiting for the system to compile for a few hours, Gentoo might just be the best OS for you.

I will definitely keep using it and I will allays trying to learn about Linux and improve my knowledge to become more productive when it matters.