>Are there any special advantages in it being
>source-based as opposed to being RPM-based?
Hello. Ther are two big advantages of being Source based upon the
RPM based.
First, it is more secure. The binary package, can be - theoretically
patched with a backdoor for example. It is hard to patch it but it is
very harder to check if package was patched. Of course the Source can
be patched too, but let some hacker find that and somebody can have a
big trouble, and of course Source can be chceckd by md5sum and Gentoo
is doing that, to make sure that packages have'nt been patched at
gentoo mirror for example.
Second thing is that packages are compiled for machine that You have
put in /etc/make.conf file. Thanks that You can produce binaries
optimized for Your processor as You want. Of course they can be
compiled for i386 as You wish.
And of course You decide what compile options are used for that
software (if You compile it by hand).
>am I adequately prepared to install it?
If You have ever compiled a program, with non standard ./configure
options You are pretty good prepared to install Gentoo. Of course there
are many different problems. But You should know how the compilation process
works, and what options are usually used for compile
programs, this is very useful theoretical base for gentoo.
There are sometimes situations that You will have to compile and install
package by hand, cause, for example it isn't on gentoo mirror server.
Sometimes it just doesn't compile cause the patches, then You must
<emerge -f package> and compile it by yourself.
May the Source be with You! :)
Wojciech
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