[prewett]

Building Gentoo with USE=static might be a good way to experiment without have to build an entire new distribution. Try one with the flag, one without, do the same operations in each and watch the memory usage and time to completion.

[default_name]

It's not that easy. Many libraries can't be statically linked, some programs will break if it will be statically linked. It is impossible to link statically with glibc. Even if it would be possible it's pointless. You will need another lean libc, like musl. Than go figure list of bugs found by musl: http://wiki.musl-libc.org/wiki/Bugs_found_by_musl

[justincormack]

There is an experimental Musl gentoo stage I think now.

[benjamincburns]

Took the words right out of my mouth. Though I think to do this well you'd need to go old school and do a fully bootstrapped (formerly "stage 1") install.