Gentoo does its way

Since I have been trying Gentoo, I have learned that it is definitely a bit more tedious and detailed to accomplish many things as compared to FreeBSD.  There isn't much automation in a default install and at the moment I am not sure what automation could be added.  Gentoo just does things differently, and you may need a crib sheet to know what to use or how to do something, until it becomes second nature.  It can be learned but there may be many bumps or hiccups along the way, correcting misunderstood methods and finally getting success.

For FreeBSD there is a bootable image which guides you through the entire process from preparing the storage medium (hard drives) all the way to installing and configuring the base system, and adding users.  A reboot into a fresh install drops you to a shell login prompt and then you need to setup your GUI.  Some flavors of FreeBSD such as long defunct PC-BSD and present Ghost BSD will finish by installing your desired GUI or a default GUI.  There is also sysutils/desktop-installer in ports which can be very helpful to automate a number of GUI installations.

If you have to setup a FreeBSD desktop, you can use a desktop installer and choose one of those it supports, or you can work from the basic level.  When you install a GUI for FreeBSD, you first need to get X windows with its assorted support mechanisms (including xterm), and then you choose a GUI like FVWM and maybe a login session manager such as SLiM.  After that is accomplished, you can continue to use pkg or the FreeBSD ports system to install further software.  The hierarchy of the ports system allows for easy discovery of software one may wish to add to their system.  There is plenty of associated documentation that is available online or installed, even as part of the base system, so that many questions can be answered easily.  One can fairly quickly and simply get a FreeBSD system up and running as desired with all the software of interest assuming it is already in ports or a pkg exists.

Gentoo does have documentation, it does have a handbook and wiki and forums.  What it does not seem to have, at least from a default basic install is automation or scripting all set-up to be used.  There is no poudriere, there is no ports tree with its hierarchy and predefined make files that easily facilitate the process.  Gentoo does have a build system, it does have packages.  Installing a fresh system is a long process, every step and detail the user must type and carry out.  There is great flexibility in this but some things may take using or trying to know if those are the best choices to make, the best configuration to use.  There are things that act like helpers, which complete tasks in a similar fashion as sysrc on FreeBSD can set variables for rc.conf, but aside from those it is a long journey with small step after small step process.  Gentoo has its niche, it has its advocates and fans, and it may aid me with porting things to FreeBSD, but if compared to Ubuntu, or as FreeBSD -release compared to -current, it is just a bit more difficult to handle and possibly not really for the novice.

This has though been the most time I have spent trying to use and understand any specific Linux distro and I believe the experience has been useful.  I am certainly not going to erase the long fought work of getting a usable Gentoo in Virtualbox, but instead move it to a faster machine to learn more.  My preference is to use FreeBSD, I have been using it sporadically since before 2000 as v2.2.6 and almost constantly since about 2008 beginning with PC-BSD 8.x which I eventually abandoned (due mostly to my tinkering) for FreeBSD 9.x and FreeBSD stable-9.  I eventually decided to work on porting things to FreeBSD in an unofficial capacity, which is where understanding Linux will be useful.  Gentoo in a virtual box might help me with that.