Just for hysterical counterpoint, I tried running gentoo about... dunno, six or so years ago. Having to compile everything was compelling when just a simple compiler flag change to optimze for a particular i686 type processor. But now days, the speed improvements are down in the noise. I've been a happy Debian user for years nad years now. I run Ubuntu Alphas on my desktop, but since I mount all my data from NFS, I run that server on Debian Squeeze. 175 days of uptime at my house, even with lots of patches. Probably should reboot to get the updated kernel into things. But anyway, I find that Debian gives me most of the control I want, and none of the hassle of having to compile stuff from scratch, though I do realize that Gentoo does off pre-compiled stuff now too. Dunno... just a data point, no strong feelings one way or another. John --