>>51036258I've used most distros out there, and to be honest, none of them taught me more about Linux than Gentoo. I'll be honest, I didn't rice my USE flags and compiler optimizations as much as the average Gentoo user does, so my builds were probably something like what you'd find in Arch or Debian.
However, I did do a custom kernel, and that was one of the most annoying things about Gentoo.
Let me explain.
My Gentoo installation persisted in what I call the "installation" or "set-up" phase for several months, basically, I define the installation period as done when a system would do all my activities without a hiccup, this lasts about a week or less on Winblows, and a 1 or two on the average Linux distro with pre-bundled software.
Gentoo, however, was not like Arch, which takes about as much as Winblows to make it work just exactly like I want, as I constantly had to re-compile the kernel to make shit work, because apparently, almost every single function in the operating system requires a different kernel module, so if you go for a custom kernel, and it's your first time, prepare for a mother fucking bumpy ride, you'll recompile your kernel 3 times a day.
However, if you've done your own kernel before, memorize by heart everything you should tick, I suppose you should be fine.
The same goes for useflags, if I did not choose the "universal" desktop useflags, I would be recompiling X every day, along with the rest of the crap on my PC, why? Because I'll want a new feature in said thing, that I did not include, due to not knowing that one, it's actually there and two, that I should have added it.
However, assuming you used all defaults, Gentoo will be a damn good system, its package management is the fucking absolute BEST on ANY Linux distro EVER, it'll make using Pacman and Apt cringe-worthy in comparison.
And remember, with Gentoo, you can always do a custom kernel later, and you can always re-compile your entire system with ricer compiler options.