Gentoo's Graphical Installer is Unnecessary

Gentoo has long been a distribution aimed towards the power Linux user. It allows users to foray into the inner workings of their computers, emphasizing total customizability for optimal performance and minimum size. It is not for users who are looking for an operating system as soon as possible. Installations can take many hours, especially since the entire system is compiled from source. Because of Portage, the package system, installations and updates are generally easy, but nevertheless time-consuming.

With this year's first Gentoo release, 2007.0, comes an updated LiveCD featuring a completely rewritten GTK+ based installer. Being a Gentoo user for nearly 2 years, long before the release of any automated installer, I was curious as to what a graphical Gentoo installer entails.

After booting the LiveCD and being presented with a heavily customized Gnome desktop, I double-clicked the GTK+ installer. It consisted of a set of installation windows similar to any other LiveCD installer, and gave me options to auto-partition my hard drive and auto-configure my kernel. There are a few little annoyances with the installer—progress bars don't really show progress, so the user has no idea if (and when) the task will be completed, there is no way to see a console output of the tasks being performed, and the instructions to select a release snapshot were not very clear. However, after some hours of waiting for a cryptic “Please be patient!” progress indicator to finish, it did succeed.

The bigger question is, why provide a GTK+ based installer in the first place? One of the most appealing aspects to Gentoo is the fact that by installing the distribution, a user not so well-versed in the inner workings of a Linux environment will learn very quickly. The installation docs are, and have been, informative and thorough, walking users through the steps to perform an installation by hand, in a command prompt. If a user wants a system based on default configurations and soon, there are far better choices than Gentoo.

Granted, there are uses for Gentoo beyond those who want to compile their entire system from source. There are binary ebuilds which skip the compilation step and provide functionality similar to any other binary distribution. However, this aspect of Gentoo is an afterthought, and many ebuilds have no such binary option.

Gentoo remains an excellent choice for users who want a completely customized distribution with an excellent package system, but it will never be practical for many Linux users. The inclusion of a graphical installer seems helpful, but it ends up taking away the instruction and customization that a by-hand Gentoo installation can provide. Anyone wishing to get into the meat of their machine should stick with the installation instructions provided with Gentoo and go through the process himself.

[pty]

Is the installer on the minimal and universal disks a graphical one too? Or is it just the Live CD install (like Ubuntu)?

[John A]

I agree with the author, I've used Gentoo, and the reason I use it is because I need the power. If I didn't need it, I'd move on to a different distribution. The last time I used Gentoo's LiveCD, the installer wiped my hard drive for the umpteenth time, and ever since then I've been doing a manual installation, because it works.

>Or is it just the Live CD install (like Ubuntu)?
I haven't tried this new revamp of Gentoo, but previously it was pretty well LiveCD for graphical installations, and a manual install for everything else. I could be wrong though.

[mattb0611]

There was an ncurses installer, but I didn't use it at all. It might just be the same as the graphical installer (except text-based). Really, if you have a decent internet connection, the minimal LiveCD is the best way to go. Get to a command prompt and follow the Handbook.

[Infarction]

The LiveCD idea just doesn't fit with Gentoo's ideology. The idea of having a Gentoo box that's automatically configured just seems... not Gentoo-ish at all. And as mentioned, Gentoo is not for everyone; rather, it's for the select few...

[uJen2u]

Let me tell you something. When I started using Gentoo, it was the most popular distribution around. I tried to convert people, but the install made it hard for people to do "impulse" installs. People I DID manage to convert stopped using Gentoo through attrition this way: something bad happens> need to fix my system quick> Install Ubuntu in 10 minutes.> Gentoo becomes forgotten.

This happened to me. I needed a working system FAST as someone was on the way over and needed something now, and I hadn't insralled Gentoo in years and needed a system up NOW. I installed ubuntu 10.04 because it was laying around. it just stuck.

You know, most open source projects are started because they scratch someone's itch. Gentoo users bemoan about people with itches and tell you that you should just live with it. It's this dynamic about the Gentoo community that caused it's downfall. If you don't mind the manual install more power to you. OTHER people itch and it should be no skin off your back if someone includes an installer, you are not forced to use it.