Do specs matter?
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Do specs matter?
What specs?
I like Gentoo, but no distro is "the best". They're all different and meant for different people with different requirements and skill-levels.
I meant like 955mhz processer, etc for specs.
Also I have basic knowledge.....
955MHz is more than fast enough. What do you want Linux for? Do you want something easy to set up for newbies? Do you want to really learn how Linux works (and how your computer works, in the process) and don't mind spending a week just to install it? Do you want something ultra-stable, or do you want something bleeding-edge? Do you want complete control over every detail of your computer, or do you want a distro to take care of everything for you? Pick a distro and go start reading their support forums and see how you like it. Go read the forums here: http://www.justlinux.com/. I went through Redhat, Madrake, Redhat again many times, the Linux From Scratch, and finally Gentoo.
If you REALLY want to learn, do Linux From Scratch, here http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ . You will likely completely screw up and end up with a horrible unusable mess, but you'll learn so much doing it that you'll be able to make a better choice of what you want / need.
Funny, I was expecting Unne to say Gentoo, but he didn't, so I'll say it for him:
Gentoo.
When I say it, I get castrated almost instantaneously by people who like other inferior distros better. Since when are you allowed to say it?
Can you download the Gentoo source seperately without compiling, then compile/install it locally off your HD at another time? I hate installing anything off the internet, only from local disks or the LAN at most :p
So far as installing Gentoo to begin with, it comes with the base files all on the CD. You sync with the remote server / download more files toward the end of the install, that's all. If you have the files you need downloaded somewhere already, you can use them.
When you install pacakges, portage doesn't have to fetch the files itself itself at the time you build the package, no. So long as the files are in the right place, portage will find them and use them. If the files aren't there, then portage auto-fetches them, either from a Gentoo mirror or, if it can't find the file on a mirror, directly from the developer's site.
emerge mozilla-firefox, for example, is just shorthand for ebuild fetch, ebuild unpack, ebuild compile, ebuild install and ebuild qmerge. You can manually do the steps yourself. If you just want to fetch, you can do
ebuild /usr/portage/net-www/mozilla-firefox/mozilla-firefox-0.8.ebuild fetch
And it'll fetch the right file(s) (using wget I believe) and stick the file(s) in the right directory, and then later you can do the whole emerge. Or you can manually download the file yourself and stick it in the right folder, which would be slower and more hassle-ish. Doing the steps manually is also helpful if you want to modify the source yourself before portage compiles and installs it. I sometimes need to do a manual fetch and unpack, fix some code, then do the rest. Portage is flexible.
*blinks*
o*dies*o
*looks horified*
I used Mandrake for a short time.
Very easy to use.
You'll just want to read the included documentation to help you along the way.