Its been a ride so far in my 2 year journey after just 58 days. I have many issues still and lots of learning but I like it. I miss Arch but I must move on to bigger and better. I am finally past the days of Systemd and rolling release. Things are stable and slow. Compile times take too long but the perfect way to make a minimal system.
One thing I've learned so far is that Gentoo is teaching me what I need and don't need. On Arch, it is so easy and actually enthralling to install as many packages as possible because experimenting is fun. On Gentoo, you have to wait so long depending on the size of the package that it makes you think "is this worth the time I will possibly waste".
While I've had more issues with my environment on Gentoo than Arch, I actually enjoy fixing Gentoo. I can't explain why, but something about the thought of reinstalling and losing the challenge is a big incentive just to find a way to fix the issue. For almost the entire time I've gone with this install, I've had picom issues and didn't use it because of it. Turns out I was missing one line of code in my dwm's x.c and once I added it, it fixed all of my issues.
I've pretty much had to learn an entirely different system which is awesome. While switching from Debian to Arch is different, they are both systemd with the only real difference being the package manager. On Gentoo, it's completely different with Openrc and Portage. It's a learning process, but I think I am finally understanding how Openrc works for the services and managing packages with portage. Are there still many things to learn? Without a doubt, but I don't feel like I am stupid when I want to make a service start when booting or trying to remove a package from the world file.
I have been crafting the perfect zenful environment for working. It works so well in fact that time I dedicate to gaming is going down and my environments even outside of the system are changing. I have a new desk and it is minimal and perfectly crafted for me. My Apple devices all use the same wallpapers and are used for productivity more than just entertainment now. I even have a whiteboard that I use often when programming instead of just commenting in my code which doesn't help visually whatsoever.
Here are the dotfiles. I use librewolf, neovim, tmux, suckless software and everforest for everything. It is a time consuming and very carefully crafted config that I have been working on a lot. The journey of the next 22 months is long and I am definitely exited to see what is going to happen over that time with this system. So if you are thinking about trying a new system, try Gentoo or one you have always been wanting to try but always you were never smart enough for. You most likely are!
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