I ran Gentoo for a few years, and it was a great balance of being low level and customizable but practical for day to day use. When you have set things up from

I ran Gentoo for a few years, and it was a great balance of being low level and customizable but practical for day to day use. When you have set things up from scratch, you can fix it when it breaks. The Gentoo install disk helped me recover many a server. I got tired of the endless compilation, though.