Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Gentoo vs any other distro (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by Tekkip20@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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So you may have heard of the install gentoo meme, when I looked the guidebook I thought it looked a little complex like with Arch.

Does Gentoo have something special that other distros do not? Apparently you can use the USE FLAGS to determine what stuff you want and it's meant to be even more lean on resources.

Isn't there a Gentoo installer like with Arch? With Arch I can confidently just run the installer on a VM but I got stuck with Gentoo

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[–] Heavybell@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

The point of use flags is to make it so if you don't want to print, every package that would otherwise pull in CUPS as a dependency can be compiled without it. Stuff like that.

Gentoo also has a good system for handling multiple concurrent installs of different versions of some packages, e.g python.

If there's software you want to install from source that uses automake it's pretty simple to build your own package for it.

Very much a system for doing things your way, and a good way to learn linux IMO. To that end, no there is no installer, but the process is not that complex. Boot a live USB, partition and format a drive, download and extract a base system, install a kernel (there is a fits-most-needs one available now), install a bootloader. Reboot into your new system and continue installing what you need from there.