Linux distributions and Gentoo

I've been using Linux for a few years, and I have tried several distributions, from Slackware to RedHat and Mandrake. Those are fine distributions, aimed for the general public. However, somewhere on the way I decided to be a little bolder. I wanted to know more about Linux and how it worked. And the best way to learn it was to build it myself. And that's how I started with Linux From Scratch (the name is very well chosen).
It took me a lot of time to have Linux properly installed and configured, but in the end it was worth it. The machine was lightning fast, everything was configured just right...And I had reached my objective: learning about all the small pieces that Linux is made of. No more seeking for configuration files (I had to write them all, so I knew where they were). And it was fast because every little thing was compiled in my machine, with all the right compilation flags.
However, it had a price: upgrading. As the name implies, it is from scratch....Meaning that I'd have to manually compile everything, that I wanted to upgrade, all over again...along with all the dependency tree (with the right versions).
I do like Linux From Scratch. In fact I think everyone should install it once. But I really mean once...unless you really enjoy compiling :)

So, I realized I would have to move on to a different distribution. What distribution would I choose next ? I didn't want to go back to RedHat'ish kind of distributions, now that I tasted the speed of a self-compiled distribution. And so, Gentoo appeared naturally. It's a compile-based distribution (packages are compiled in your machine) but with a great set of tools (portage) that allow you to upgrade all your system automatically. Let me give you an example:

emerge mozilla-firefox

You only need this command to install Firefox in your machine...It will check for all the dependencies, download all the necessary packages, and then compile and install all of them. Upgrading to a newer version is exactly the same command.

So, now you have the power of having everything compiled in your machine and all you need to do is sit back and relax, while Gentoo does all the hard work for you :)
And gets even better....Imagine you want to upgrade all the packages that you have installed :

emerge world

As simple as that...You can even schedule a cron job to do it periodically. So, at least for now, I'm quite happy with the Gentoo distribution :)