In addition to tech, #Linux, and other things #FLOSS, I’m also into #travel, jam bands (mostly Grateful Dead), music festivals, and anything related to exploring the #cosmos.
I have an old iMac that I am planning to install some flavor of Linux on and while I was looking at various distros it occurred to me that it might be a good exercise to install Gentoo on it. Other than a separate machine for documentation and downloading the necessary packages, what else should I have set up to try this? Has...
I say go for it. I’ve been using it for about 2 years, and I no longer feel like distro-hopping (not sure if you fall into that category of Linux user), because it’s not opinionated about how it’s meant to be used. It gives you all the tools (and foot-guns) to do whatever you want with your computer.
You don’t need separate computers for a local mirror and/or build server to run Gentoo, I’ve never done that. I’ve never owned a Mac, so I can’t really offer any tips hardware-wise, but use a live USB of a distro that you’re already familiar with, so you can refer to the handbook as you go. The people on Gentoo’s IRC channel & forums are very helpful if you come against any roadblocks.
It does take a while, not gonna gloss over that. Once you have it installed, there are very few issues that would require a full re-install. Portage is an awesome package manager, the language of its warnings/errors took some time to wrap my brain around, but it’s very verbose in describing what’s going on.
Linux Mint was the distro I chose little less than a year ago when I switched to Linux. Used it with Cinammon at first and then switched to XFCE. It’s been a cool journey and I have def learned a lot....
I second raptir’s note about running zypper dup in the terminal to do system updates. Zypper’s a bit slow because it lacks parallel downloads, but it provides good info if there are any issues.
If you plan to use flatpaks, add the flathub repo with the --user option, and use that one to install. If I didn’t go that route, it prompted me to enter my password for every flatpak app with an update. I’m also a deplorable Plasma user 😜, I don’t know if the same behavior happens with Gnome software, it may be a weird Discover thing (shrugs).
Also, if you need the non-free multimedia codecs, run the following commands:
zypper install opi
opi codecs
Automates adding the Packman repo & switching the relevant packages.
Those are the main quirks I learned with Tumbleweed.
Considering Gentoo
I have an old iMac that I am planning to install some flavor of Linux on and while I was looking at various distros it occurred to me that it might be a good exercise to install Gentoo on it. Other than a separate machine for documentation and downloading the necessary packages, what else should I have set up to try this? Has...
Switching from Linux Mint to OpenSuSE Tumbleweed very soon. Any advice?
Linux Mint was the distro I chose little less than a year ago when I switched to Linux. Used it with Cinammon at first and then switched to XFCE. It’s been a cool journey and I have def learned a lot....