[nollidge]

It's the deep end, but there's VERY detailed and explicit instructions on how to swim. And almost zero risk of actual death.

I wouldn't recommend it for someone who's never touched *nix before, but if you've installed Linux, and run apt-get a couple times, it's enormously edifying.

I never felt like I "got" Linux until I installed Gentoo.

[jff]

Most of the things you'll "learn" with Gentoo are how to get such-and-such a package to agree to build & install. Gentoo is all about groveling through configs because you're stuck in a 1993 mentality of trying to save 100 kB in your binary by excluding GIF support in Firefox and stripping symbols out of /bin/ls.

[recursive]

> I wouldn't recommend it for someone who's never touched *nix before,

But shouldn't that be the target audience of a "Learn to"-style guide?