In April, 2003, the Linux guys from UITS at Indiana University were promoting Gentoo Linux at the 2003 Linuxfest. UITS gave a great presentation of Gentoo and I can see why they were one of the first ones to host a Gentoo Mirror in the US. They kept telling us that installed Gentoo for the first time was not easy. They even demonstrated a Stage 3 install, which at that time, was not easy. I just remembered that I wanted to try Gentoo when I got the chance.

Gentoo is a source-based Linux distribution that helps users put together a streamlined custom system. But Linux users spoiled by the see-before-you-try Live CDs would often shy from Gentoo. Then along came Kororaa. Kororaa's package selection not only makes it an all-round Linux desktop, but has also ruffled feathers of Linux kernel developers.

When the long-awaited Gentoo 2008.0 release finally hit mirrors last month, the two largest groups of users found themselves out of luck: x86 users discovered that their live CD wouldn't copy the kernel during install, and the AMD64 image wouldn't fit onto a standard CD-ROM. This was not a great start for a distribution whose comeback may rest upon this release.

"...It's held on the first Saturday of every month. It's an opportunity for everyone to contribute to making Gentoo better, and eventually you might even become a Gentoo developer..."

There was an interesting thread I read in the forums this morning that was talking about the general process of stabling software. Got me thinking about the distribution as a whole, and why I like it, and why I keep coming back to it. In short, why I freaking love Gentoo.

I have been thinking for awhile now and can’t convince myself of an answer. Does the lack of yearly releases help or hurt Gentoo?

Gentoo is turning 10 years old. For the last ten years, Gentoo has been committed to bringing the cutting edge source based distro to users that need more flexibility than binary packages can give them. With a vibrant community and over 300 developers, much has been accomplished since the beginning, Gentoo remains true to its origin.

"Just a reminder to all the Gentoo users out there that you don't have to know anything about ebuild writing to become a Gentoo developer. To become Gentoo staff for things like GMN, PR and Devrel you only need to take the staff quiz and of course in general you don't even need to be developer to help out..."

One of the companies behind The Humble Indie Bundle, Wolfire Games reports that GNU/Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users !