Another Gentoo fan here
In answer to Russian\'s previous post
1) Portage is the package maintainer software. Basically, instead of putting everything on CD\'s and having to download 4 disks ( what a waste! ), you install a base system with the bare minimum. That lets you pick exactly what you want on your system, download it and compile it. In portage there is pretty much every program you\'ll ever need, including planeshift
You\'ll spend a day or two ( literally ) when you first install to get all X and Gnome/KDE you want up, but generally after that it\'s not bad. Appart from the big few packages like OO.org and FireFox, most will compile fast on your computer ( I have a 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM for comparison, and things run just fine ). For large updates of the entire system ( see next point ) I just leave it overnight or when I\'m off to the pub or something.
2) To update your list of programs available through portage, you need to sync the portage tree. It will update the
list of programs, but not the programs themselves. You\'ll need
emerge --update [world|system] which will update everything. There\'s a --deep option that\'ll update all dependencies too -- all this is explained in the ( amazing ) documentation that comes with Gentoo, so don\'t worry.
3) Hardware regonition? Hmm, not Gentoo\'s strongest point as far as I\'m concerned. Took me months to get my sound working ( which in the end was simple! ), still not got USB working. But then Gentoo it much more about learning how your computer works, which I find interesting. If you want something that \"just works\", I also hear good things about Ubuntu.
Another great thing, which I\'m sure you\'ll have at least heard of by now, is USE flags. They let you choose whether program that support a certain thing ( e.g. mp3 playback, KDE integration, etc ) will actually build in that support or not - depending on what you want. It\'s all about choice.
Like you say - don\'t take our ( bias
) opinions on it - try it out and see. You\'ll at least learn something. All I know it, I tried a few other distro\'s, and never looked back after Gentoo. It works for me, only you can say if it\'ll work for you.
Edit: speeling 