Linux newbies and enthusiasts around the world, if you haven’t done so already, now is your chance to give Gentoo a test drive and see what’s the fastest penguin is all about.
If you’re looking for reasons as to why you should use Gentoo, I can easily count a few just off the top of my head such as, control, user empowerment, flexibility, speed and so on.
That said, the coin has two sides and where there’s an uphill slope there always will be a downhill one, so take it with a little grain of salt that the downhill in this case would probably be the steep learning curve required in order to efficiently operate the system.
However, for the plain purpose of just checking out the liveDVD edition there’s no learning curve needed, assuming you’ve already familiarized yourself with Linux.
The reason for the sudden release, according to the announcement message is “to celebrate the continued collaboration between Gentoo users and developers”. A noble reason indeed.
Also according to the announcement, the DVD contains the following highlight package list:
Packages Included Inside The LiveDVD
- Linux Kernel 3.15.6
- Xorg 1.16.0
- Desktop Environments:
- KDE 4.13.3
- Gnome 3.12.2
- XFCE 4.10
- Fluxbox 1.3.5
- LXQT Desktop 0.7.0
- i3 Desktop 2.8
- Firefox 31.0
- LibreOffice 4.2.5.2
- Gimp 2.8.10-r1
- Blender 2.71-r1
- Amarok 2.8.0-r2
- Chromium 37.0.2062.35
- And much more …
Checking out the liveDVD I found it also includes many different games – the type you get when installing a certain DE such as Gnome or KDE, and also various kinds of useful utilities.
Download Gentoo Iron Penguin Edition
As said above, the livedvd is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, the 64 – bit is divided into two flavors, one suitable for running both 32-bit and 64-bit apps, and the other is pure 64-bit designated.
In the event you find Gentoo to your likings and decide to install it on your hardware, I’d suggest you keep the livedvd and do the installation through it, this way you could chroot into the installation and keep a graphical desktop (& rescue DVD) available at hand.
Lastly, if you need any support or have any questions you can be assisted by the following intended forum thread, I’m sure you’ll find the Gentoo community much helpful.
As a Gentoo user myself, you are also welcome to ask questions in the comment section down below, I’ll do my best to answer what I can.
