As you can see on Distrowatch, it was the hype at the time. If you wanted to be source based, and pseudo-minimalist, there weren't many alternatives. Amongst th

As you can see on Distrowatch, it was the hype at the time. If you wanted to be source based, and pseudo-minimalist, there weren't many alternatives. Amongst them, Gentoo had the best documentation, and probably the friendliest forums.