In 2008 the Gentoo Foundation ceased to exist, sending rumors of Gentoo’s demise and ultimate death circulating around the Internet. Almost two years on, the distro is still here and celebrating its 10th anniversary. How close did the distro come to disaster, and where does it stand now?

In celebration of Gentoo's 10th birthday, the Gentoo engineering team banded together and created the Gentoo 10 LiveDVD of the latest packages for this rolling Linux distribution. Less than a month after releasing Gentoo 10.0, the Gentoo Ten team has released Gentoo 10.1.The Gentoo 10.1 LiveDVD contains enhancements and bug-fixes since the 10.0 release at the start of the month...

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.

Gentoo Linux has its problems. Gentoo once heralded the source-based distribution revolution, but in the second half of my time with gentoo, things went from bad to worse.

There's a popular saying that if you manage to install Gentoo on the first run, this means you have done something wrong. Gentoo has always been the most difficult distro to install, even though it promises great rewards for the die-hards willing to take the pain.

I finally removed myself from all the Gentoo mailing lists. I did this with some sad thoughts. I had been using gentoo for almost 4 Years and it tough me quite a lot about Linux. Unfortunately I have been seeing the Gentoo project die over the past Year or so. After going to the Gentoo UK meeting in 2006 I noticed that nothing important / technical was discussed. It was all about the flame wars going on on the mailing lists.

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.

Many times I can read about how people look at Gentoo and its nature of always compiling each packet at installation. Often it’s believed that Gentoo is faster because the compilation can optimize for the processor being used. That may be true, but that is not what characterizes Gentoo.

There is a large interest among the Gentoo and larger Linux user community for me to come back as Chief Architect. And recently, I found out that in theory - maybe with a bit of fighting - the position was still available to me, as I was still registered as the President of the Gentoo Foundation up until recently.