During my summer vacation employment, I was lucky to meet a few interesting characters. One such character was Simon.

Simon is a linux user who has stopped using Windows and now relies on Gentoo for all his computing needs. Simon runs all his applications in console, including his MP3 playing and internet browsing.

This intrigued me as I was still mainly a Windows user, and part-time Ubuntu user. I still plan to continue using Windows as my main operating system due to my gaming interests, but with regards to Ubuntu, I was over the whole linux-based GUI. Most of my linux use was restricted to console in any case and I found the GUI very uninteresting. This is why I chose to move to a console world.

At first I thought the Gentoo installation would be as simple as downloading the ISO off the Gentoo website, booting the operating system, and double-clicking the install button, just like Ubuntu. Unfortunately I was pleasantly suprised that the minimum install contains a minimal set of features (just as the website claimed) and to install the added features required entering a few extra commands. This is great, exactly what I wanted, but I forgot to print out any documentation or find out where documentation was stored for the installation. This set me back a day while I waited to organise the printing of the installation guide. Unfortunately my linux experience was restricted to basic shell tools and programming, I was not that familiar with the setup and installation tools provided by Linux.

Fortunately I found this guide, Gentoo Linux x86 Quick Install Guide, on installation. Hopefully if all goes well in the next few days I will have Gentoo up and running.