Product Overview
Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software, but includes some proprietary software packages. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen configuration. There are normally no precompiled binaries for software, continuing the tradition of the ports collection, although for convenience, some software packages (such as Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.org) are also available as precompiled binaries for various architectures where compiling would otherwise be very time consuming. The development project and its products are named after the Gentoo penguin. Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, flexible, and optimized for the user's machine. Gentoo describes itself as a metadistribution, "because of its near-unlimited adaptability".
