current liveCD used 2.6.8 or 2.6.9...with many many many kernel choices. OK, on to package management. portage and emerge. basically all the custom scripts to install all packages that also lists depencies and automacally installs them. By typing "emerge -av mutt", portage finds what I have installed, what I need for mutt and installs all dependancys and then mutt. The installs are all done through scripts that download the tarballs, extract, ./configure, make, make install, or what ever is needed for that packages. Look at www.gentoo.org for more. It is a great automated source system that I love. And being source based it is up to you for being fast.
By that way, one the biggest things is gentoo is all choice, besides the very basic base layout of linux like gcc, glibc, etc, you choose what you want, though they have good suggestions.
Varikin |
