deroyan: In Praise of Gentoo

“In rebuilding my server, I’ve grown very accustomed to Gentoo
Linux, the unique distribution that is source-based. ‘Source-based’
here means that you don’t download binary applications and update
your system with pre-compiled binary files. All gentoo updates and
packages are source code packages and patches. When you install a
new application, you download its source package with the ’emerge’
package tool, and Gentoo automatically builds the
package–specifically for your system and with your settings–and
installs the package as every other distro normally does. The
phenomenal ability to do this is absolutely mind-boggling. I have
pretty good experience with the other major distros like the Red
Hat varieties, SuSE, debian, Ubuntu, Slack and the other major
players. So coming to Gentoo, I thought I’d have a real hard time
installing and setting things up…”

Complete
Story