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In Gentoo Linux 1.4, the Gentoo Reference Platform (GRP) was introduced. It provides precompiled packages, allowing users to avoid long compile times. For reference, installing a base system completely from source on an Athlon XP system might be expected to take upwards of twelve hours, especially if optional components like XFree86 KDE and Mozilla are installed. This is because compilation is a lengthy process, but because the system is compiled from source, it can be optimized for the system one is installing for. Also, most of this time the computer is compiling software unattended.
Installation is by no means easy; while documention is available and complete, much hand-editing of configuration files is needed, and new Linux users might be better advised to use a system with a graphical installer, such as Mandrake or Redhat.
It is also possible to create tarballs of packages for distribution to other machines. This is particularly useful in the case of a homogenous computing environment, where packages may be used on many machines despite having been prepared on a specific one.
Gentoo currently runs on the x86, PowerPC, SPARC, AMD64, IA64, DEC Alpha and HPPA platforms.
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