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A short update: it turned out that the Gentoo installer had some sort of error halfway through. It left me with a system that was bootable, but had no network drivers. :(

So, today I spent quite awhile deliberating. What I really want is to pick a version of Linux that does what I want it to do (that being, well, everything we expect a desktop PC to do), and then just leave it on there. I’d like to leave the same Linux distribution on my box for not just a month or two, but more or less indefinitely. And, sorry, but, Ubuntu is not among the short list; I’ve installed that too many times and always wound up getting rid of it. I will admit that any troubles I may have had (I can’t even remember them) could have probably been resolved by my digging a little deeper into apt and other tools particular to Debian-based systems… but, what can I say? I can remember getting annoyed, for one reason or another, every time I had installed Ubuntu in the past. So, no more Ubuntu for this cowboy.

My shortlist was ArchLinux, Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED), Slackware, or Gentoo. I actually installed Slackware this morning; I would probably be using it now, except there was some sort of problem with Grub getting onto the MBR and it wouldn’t boot. :( So, my introduction to Slackware will have to await another time.

After that, I nearly installed Arch or SLED again, and suddenly struck by what Neal Stephenson’s Jack Shaftoe would have called the imp of the perverse, decided to install Gentoo after all… just not with the installer. I decided to do an old-fashioned by the handbook Gentoo install; the kind that takes two and a half days before the system (xorg, desktop evironment and apps included) is up and running.

Why would I do such a thing?

1. I’ve probably run Gentoo longer than I’ve run any other Linux distribution; for the better part of 2 years it was almost the only Linux I used. I’m very familiar with it, and very comfortable in the environment. Isn’t Linux… Linux? you might ask; well, no. Some systems use different directories for storing standard items like startup scripts and other configuration files, and I will guarantee you — when you become familiar with one way of doing things, all your senses rebel against some alternate (ergo weird) configuration.
2. It was the most stable system I’ve ever run. Bar none; I’ve had the occasional problem, but I would say the 98% of the issues I’ve ever had with Gentoo have been due to my choosing to install unstable, testing, or just plain incorrect, packages. Generally when Gentoo has a package marked “testing” — they really mean it. You are taking the life of your system into your own hands when you begin installing masked packages on Gentoo. In other words, most of the problems I’d ever had on Gentoo were my own fault. Back before I began installing all sorts of crazy things on it, it was as stable as a rock.
3. Heck, I just like it. I will admit it; I’m a sucker for good branding, and Gentoo is one of the few community-oriented distros with what you can only describe as Very Good Branding. It just cries out to be loved. ;-)

So, anyways, that brings me up to date; I’ve just installed Gentoo 2006.1 (actually, when you install from scratch the version numbers mean very little; you wind up installing whatever happens to be the latest version on whatever day you install); I’m recompiling the base system, which will be followed by compiling xorg, and probably Gnome (though I am tempted to try out a lightweight desktop for awhile… but I have a feeling I would go back to Gnome. Again, familiarity).

So… hopefully I will not be saying “Hey, I just installed fancy-new-distro-X” for a long, long time. At least, not unless I find a spare machine to use. I want to leave my main desktop alone for awhile.