Member Avatar for extofer

You can read about my linux experience here: http://www.gabrielvilla.com/forum/?p=9 and my question is about Gentoo. I decided to install Gentoo, but after printing pages of the installation guide, I could not get too far. Two things???
is there a ditro as good as gentoo (not red hat or mandrake or suse even) that is easy to install.
also, I heard slackware was good too but it's installing is even harder.
I'm using linux basically for PHP, MySQL, Apache and testing...
any recomendations???

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Thread summary for context: wants a system for PHP/MySQL/Apache testing, tried the Gentoo handbook and stalled, and heard Slackware is “even harder.” reports using Gentoo for a server and Ubuntu for everything else.

For a fast, reliable LAMP testbed: pick a mainstream binary-based distro (Debian-family or an enterprise/RHEL-family server build). Binary distros remove the long compile cycles and provide predictable packages and security updates, so Apache, the database server, and PHP are available quickly through the package manager or installer helpers. Snapshots, VM images, or prebuilt LAMP stacks (for local testing) speed setup even further.

If the goal is learning, tuning and absolute control, Gentoo is appropriate but time-intensive. To make Gentoo approachable: install inside a VM or on spare hardware, use a stage3/minimal profile, follow the official Handbook step‑by‑step, and keep the initial USE flags small. Use emerge --sync and then build only the packages needed for a basic LAMP stack; consider ccache or a binary host for repeated builds. Expect long compile times for big packages; add swap or temporary build hosts if needed.

Slackware is intentionally minimal and hands-on. It’s excellent for learning traditional Unix-style configuration, but it requires manual dependency handling and editing config files by hand—so it’s not the fastest route to a working LAMP server.

Practical workflow that matches the thread: get a working LAMP quickly on a binary distro for immediate testing (this follows ’s pragmatic split), then experiment with Gentoo or Slackware in a VM to learn internals and migrate any performance tweaks back to the production/test box when ready.

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Member Avatar for Daishi

You can read about my linux experience here: http://www.gabrielvilla.com/forum/?p=9 and my question is about Gentoo. I decided to install Gentoo, but after printing pages of the installation guide, I could not get too far. Two things???
is there a ditro as good as gentoo (not red hat or mandrake or suse even) that is easy to install.
also, I heard slackware was good too but it's installing is even harder.
I'm using linux basically for PHP, MySQL, Apache and testing...
any recomendations???

I started out with Gentoo, and I still use it for my server, because I haven't found anything better for my experience level...but I use Ubuntu for everything else:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

-Fredric

Member Avatar for extofer

I started out with Gentoo, and I still use it for my server, because I haven't found anything better for my experience level...but I use Ubuntu for everything else:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

-Fredric

Is there an easier way to install Gentoo?? What about Ubuntu, can it do as much as Gentoo, or at least Apache and MySQL

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