Arch Linux and Gentoo

I had heard so much hype over Arch Linux, so I just had to check it out. Last night, I took the plunge and tried installing it on my secondary desktop.

A couple of things. First of all, it didn't work. I am sure that I installed it correctly, but it wouldn't fully boot (something about VFS syncing, I don't remember). I re-installed it again, and got the same problem. Second, it used this really weird hard drive naming scheme that I've never seen before in Linux. Rather than /dev/hda1, I had /dev/discs/disc0/part1.

Anyway, I figured maybe it was a Kernel problem. There was still hope! I re-installed it a third time, but using kernel 2.4 instead. It worked! I logged in and tried 'startx', but wouldn't ya know it, X wouldn't start (and I know I installed it). But I will say this - it starts up wicked fast. That machine is fairly old. It is 600 MHz with 256 MB of ram, but that thing booted up faster than this machine, partially because I have more running on bootup here, but that definately doesn't account for everything. Props to Arch for being such a quick distro.

Since 2.6 won't boot and I can't live without an X server like in 2.4, I decided to retire Arch Linux.

I had an empty computer just begging for a new distro to be installed...

Why not Gentoo? I had read the docs on it before, and a stage 3 install doesn't require you to compile the base system (which means it won't take 24+ hours to install). So, I'm currently doing a stage 3 install of Gentoo. I'm not finished yet, but I'm sure it will work (and Gentoo also uses the /dev/discs/disc0/part1 scheme; Fedora and Kubuntu didn't).

But I do have to give props to Gentoo for having great documentation. They go over every possible option in great detail, and I'm never questioning why I may have to do a certain task, because the answer is right there in front of me.

I also like that SSH is included on the mini-install disc. I'm able to blog, read the documentation in FF, and install Gentoo at the same time. Life is good :)