Gentoo Linux http://www.gentoo.org/ is a SourceBased? Linux distribution - most easily described as a cross between Debian http://www.debian.org and FreeBSD http://www.freebsd.org/.

The installation process is messy. You have to do everything by hand. If I could offer only one piece of advice:

• If you partition /dev/hdb, don't make your filesystems on /dev/hda. Bye bye Windows.

Things to know when you're in Gentoo, that make your life easier:

• To be able to su, you must be in the "wheel" group (usermod -G wheel user)
• To be able to use the soundcard, you must be in the "audio" group (usermod -G audio user)

More to come.