I guess a Gentoo description is in order, for those not familiar with it. I am not a Gentoo expert, but will do my best at describing this distro. Gentoo is classified as a "source distro" because it is normally installed from source code only. Most new packages you install are compiled from scratch. Having said that, I need to describe the details:

Gentoo can be installed in one of three stages: one, two, or three. There is also what is termed a Gentoo Reference Platform (GRP) install, and this is used to get a Gentoo system up and running fairly quickly, but has trade-offs.

Gentoo has no installer whatsoever. All install commands are run after booting from a live cd and running one command at a time from the documentation. This can be daunting for new users, but will definately teach them about how their system works.

Basically, each Gentoo stage is designed to give a level of optimization. A stage one is the highest level of optimization, and is the most  advanced install. The user can tweak the compilers that compile the compilers, that will compile the system! A stage two has the compilers compiled for a specific architecture (Athlon, Intel, etc), and you must compile everything else from there. Stage three has the entire base system compiled, and all you have to do is compile and install programs (firefox, openoffice, etc). A GRP install has everything compiled, including the software everyone uses: firefox, etc.

After the system is installed, all software is installed using the Portage system. This is a system by which all software is downloaded, compiled, installed and configured. Portage is a masterpiece of system maintenance, and makes installing software a breeze.

The advantages of Gentoo are complete system optimation, speed and flexibility. The disadvantages are extremely long install times, and no configuration tools. It is what I would consider an advanced distro, but the documentation is excellent, and if followed to the letter, success normally results. I say normally because anything can go wrong... :rolleyes:

Thanks - just thought I\'d throw that out there. I would like to rebuild my install as a stage one, but a new quarter at school starts tomorrow, and I have no time. Besides, I may only shorten my < 1 minute boot time by a little anyway...