Quote Originally Posted by shah
Agree with probono.
I've tried Gentoo before, and didn't suit me....I guess I don't have enough patience to wait for anything to compile everytime I want to install programs.
It's a good distro if you have enough time on your hands.

I guess in the long run its a matter of which distro you feel most comfortable and confident with. What you can "get your head around" and learn most from, if thats your goal.

In addition to Gentoo, I run Knoppix/Debian and Suse 9.1 on harddisk, and have played with numerous LiveCDs.

They each have a different feel, the forums too - some distros are just that much easier to update to 'cutting edge' than others.

"Cryptic messages and dependency problems", show me a distro that doesn't have those..

As for waiting around while new packages download & compile in the background.. its not as tho' you can't do other things at the same time - on your system - but it certainly helps to have a reasonably powerful PC, and enabling 'ccache' speeds things up a bit too.

Btw, those who prefer a quick install are able to install using Stage 3, and can install a number of packages from a binary Packages CD.

Please don't think I'm knocking Debian here. I just like to encourage others to 'taste a good wine'

mvh