Paul wrote:
Hi Ben
Just about finished a Linux From Scratch build (ver 3.3) in the hope that it will provide me with a stable base on which to build a whole new system. This started off as a basic Red Hat 7.3 install - I'm begining to see why RH is *lovingly* referred to as Dead Rat after hitting a brick wall with their gcc-2.96 and gcc-3.2 compilers.
You're a brave man! Respect!
Gentoo is fine if you want an optimised install without the masocistic tendencies of an LFS system. Go to Red Hat/Mandrake or SuSE for easy, all be it, bloated installs. Or alternatively, use Debian - Probably the most popular distro on this list.. (apt_rant deleted).
I use Gentoo as well, and wouldn't use a conventional distro again. However, you're quite right here. If I were to choose a distro, I'd choose SuSE first, and Red Hat last.