About Us

Gentoo's history

It all began with Extra Time. Time to explore, time to discover, time to experiment. That's how the creator of Gentoo, Daniel Robbins stepped into the world of Linux. He started with Debian Linux, setup a couple of applications, learnt the ins & outs of Linux and as most Linux users do, tried out a couple of distributions and settled to help out with a distro called Stampede Linux. Soon he was into Stampede development and working on their package management system. After a period of time and due to certain issues, he moved on and decided that he would create his own distribution.

Thus, Enoch was born. Daniel wanted Enoch to be a blazingly fast distro with capabilities to completely automate the package creation and upgrading process. Soon there was a #enoch on irc.freenode.net and 10 developers helping with the distro. Over a period of time, as Enoch started improving, they felt that it needed a new name. They called it Gentoo Linux. Around about the time Gentoo was moving to its 1.0 release, Daniel bought a new, fast machine. The motherboard model had a faulty chip that caused Linux to lock up when idle and because of that, Gentoo Linux development came to a complete halt.

Since there wasn't anything going on with Gentoo, Daniel switched to FreeBSD. He liked what he saw. Especially the "Ports" system. And he returned to the Linux world. Along with the help of other developers like Achim Gottinger, Gentoo was back on track & charging ahead. The whole package management system was redesigned & called Portage. Gentoo has been in active development ever since, with tons of features being continually added over the years. Teams of volunteers help keep Gentoo on the bleeding edge and patched to ensure maximum security & stability.

The Gentoo development model was extended with a complete project-based approach where each project develops independently but cooperatively with other Gentoo projects. Regular meetings between the project leads (called "project managers") keep the development high-paced. The Gentoo Foundation has been created to provide financial caretaking, juridical protection and oversee general Gentoo development to keep it in line with the Social Contract.

In April 2004, Daniel decided to resign from his development responsibilities within Gentoo. We are all very grateful for all the work that Daniel has put in Gentoo and wish him the best.

Gentoo still continues to grow, evolve and improve itself - new projects are added, new developers are joining, new packages are added every day. The Gentoo developer and user community is undoubtedly Gentoo's strongest value.