11-25-2006, 11:29 AM
Quote:Gentoo is one of the most difficult distributions to learn, though veteran Gentoo users might point out that its friendly community and extensive documentation can help new users. Here are some tips that might make Gentoo easier for anyone who wants to give it a try...
One fundamental element that distinguishes Gentoo from other distributions is its package management system, called Portage, which is primarily oriented to installing software from source. This allows a great deal of control and customization -- while in binary distributions users have several packages for the same software with different dependencies and options (which actually gives users limited control compared to the options available when building the package from source), with Portage you set so-called USE flags to select optional features for the whole system or selected packages...
full article: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/15/162200