User:Luttztfz
Hi!
I am Luttztfz. I try to contribute to Gentoo as much as possible, although my time is very limited. I use computers solely as a hobby.
My Gentoo history
I use Gentoo since around 2001 or so. Although I had started with the now famous S.u.S.E. Linux 4.2 which I bought on a couple of CDs and installed it on my Intel 80486-DX50, I didn't know what to do with it at first. It had thousands of packages and I was completely overwhelmed. Coming from easy and managable DOS, I just guess I was confused. Or it was too early.
I again started to use Linux at the end of the 1990ies, but then it was the easy-to-use Mandrake Linux - the Ubuntu of its time! I soon transitioned to openSUSE since it was the successor of S.u.S.E Linux and it was from Germany. (My native language is German, so…)
I got the hint to use Gentoo from a friend. He said that it was the best way to get to know the PC system one uses and Linux at the same time. He was right. I used it on my Intel Pentium III-800 for a very long time, and on my Power Mac G4 MDD-Dual1.42 thereafter. It was the best time I ever had, given I also had enough spare time back then! After that I had a short experience on a Power Mac G5-DC2.0 which had a lot of issues, like accelerated graphics not working, and I then got my AMD Phenom II X6 1090T box. On this machine I used Gentoo for 5 years or so, until it died unexpectedly in 2015. I was not ready to buy a new box then and decided to wait for AMDs Zen architecture which was announced for the end of 2016 at that time.
I had a couple of interim computers. And since Gentoo takes a lot of time to install, I gave Debian GNU/Linux a try. I like it very much and honestly think that Debian is a solid and well designed distribution. As a former Gentoo user I had to go with at least testing to get reasonably recent package versions. I think that Debian is the better Ubuntu.
Since Mai 2017 I once again had a system suitable for Gentoo, a Ryzen 7 1800X PC. In 2021 I transitioned to using a laptop as my main system, hence in 2022 my Ryzen "ZenMachine" became a Windows gaming PC. The laptop is however also a Ryzen system, and of course it's running Gentoo Linux!
In 2023 I started to use Arch Linux on some of my computers. I use Gentoo as a source-based distribution, even tough the same year it introduced binary packages as well, but when using it source-based like I prefer to, it consumes a lot of resources (my time and compilation time on every system). So I'm running Debian GNU/Linux as a stable Linux system on most of my retro hardware, which is easy to maintain, i.e. to keep up-to-date. When I want to run a cutting-edge Linux distribution, I now use Arch Linux as a replacement for Debian: it is a rolling release like Gentoo, with all the current package versions, and has always been binary...
Current systems
- Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ACH6H, 16"
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800H APU "Cezanne" (Zen 3) – CFLAGS, microcode
- Hybrid graphics: (graphics in UEFI/BIOS setup has to be set to "dynamic"!)
- 64GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMMs: 2× Kingston KF3200C20S4/32GX
- Crucial P3 Plus NVMe SSD 4TB (CT4000P3PSSD8), M.2 2280, PCIe 4.0 ×4
- Crucial P1 NVMe SSD 2TB (CT2000P1SSD8), M.2 2280, PCIe 3.0 ×4
Samsung PM981a NVMe SSD 1TB (OEM), M.2 2280, PCIe 3.0 ×4
Previous systems
- ZenMachine – graphics card change (Nvidia closed-source is not an option for me), used for gaming on Windows and Arch Linux
- ASUS Prime X370-Pro (AM4)
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (Zen 1; boxed, without heat sink/fan)- AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT (Zen 2; boxed, without heat sink/fan) – CFLAGS, microcode
Thermalright Macho Rev. B (versions sold after January 2017 were normally already prepared for AM4)- THERMALTAKE Toughair 110 (CL-P073-AL12BL-A)
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (ASUS ROG-STRIX-RXVEGA64-O8G-GAMING)– AMDGPU- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (ASUS DUAL-RTX3060TI-O8G-V2 OC Edition) – would have to be NVIDIA (unsupported by nouveau)
- 32GB DDR4-3000 DIMM Kit, CORSAIR Vengeance LPX red 2×16GB
Intel SSD 600p 1TB, M.2 2280, PCIe 3.0 ×4- Corsair MP400 NVMe SSD 4TB, M.2 2280, PCIe 3.0 ×4
- ThinkPad P14s Gen 2a, 14" – runs Debian GNU/Linux 12 "Bookworm" (or higher)
- ThinkPad X230 2325, 12.5" – discontinued, as it took a lot of time to keep it current... now sits and collects dust
Contact
If a Gentoo developer or maintainer is in need of testing something on this particular hardware, feel free to send a private message and I will gladly help if time permits.
Cheers, Luttztfz