I tried installing gentoo and thats as far as i got. it was a pain. it was harder because i was installing it in vmware on an xp box. had some problems with the kernel modules for the scsi disks that vmware had set up. then i tried again using ide for vmware. went alot smoother. i guess the installation would of been easier if i had just generated a kernel using gen-kernel. but i was going for the geek feel of compiling a custom kernel for my system. one i get a new hard disk for my lap top (old ibm thinkpad, the hdd is burnt out) i am going to give it another go and see how i do. besides gentoo the main two distros i have used have been ubuntu and slackware. also i dont know if you read some people are developing a gentoo distro with cell processor compatability so it can be ran on Playstation 3. that seems pretty cool.