Just installed Gentoo - much better.
Never could come to grips with xffm.

Sorry, just couldn't resist ....

Yep, sure does.
Just had to get that in.

Surelly it rocks, but I find it a bit to chaotic in my taste...

Like if you want the sources of your gentoo package, you have
to browse a page like this :
http://gentoo.inode.at/distfiles/

(no directory structure like slackare /n /d ...)

Lucky you - there's no Gentoo forum on LQ.org. Otherwise this thread would be moved there "to get the exposure it deserves".
Sorry, couldn't resist either ;-)

Like all poor troll attempts, this thread deserves a nice rm -f.

Ehh? So what's all that source code in my /usr/portage/distfiles directories??

oneandoneis2, so you are enforced to install the package
to view the sources ? (this is even worst than browsing a
3.6 MB web page then...)

(deleted - completely off-topic)

Why - because the (Slackware) Gentoo package wouldn't install properly under Slackware ????.
Had to resort to a source install !!!.

- *nobody* read the initial post closely enough did they ???.
Maybe not such a "poor troll attempt" if it gets a few people thinking before mouthing off next time.

What? I honestly don't get what you're talking about. Gentoo is source-based, by definition you have the source for every package installed on your system. (Unless you specifically use a binary instead)

Here's how it works:

Just want the source code: emerge --fetchonly (packagename)
- downloads the source to /usr/portage/distfiles/(packagename)

Want the package installed: emerge (packagename)
- downloads the source to /usr/portage/distfiles/(packagename), then compiles and installs it.

Either way, you get the source code put in a known location. I honestly don't see your point.

I used to custom heavilly my system, I mean sometimes,
I use a slackbuild script and modify it a little to better
suit my needs.

I was not aware of emerge --fetchonly, but
I prefer browse manually the slackware site to get
the package patches and build scripts. Maybe I am old
schooler then ? IMHO the UNIX way is 'there is more
than one way to do it' so I don't see myself using only
one program (emerge) to do these things.

I much prefer to be able to choose between mozilla, curl,
lynx or wget to grab the package sources.

Gentoo supports that - you can --fetchonly and modify the source, then emerge the modified source. Or if you just want to modify the compile options, you can just change the USE flags and emerge as normal.

I think you could in theory download the source code with Mozilla, wget et al and put it into /usr/portage/distfiles, but I can't swear to that.

I do know that you can just download source code normally and then install it as a portage package yourself: Rather like using checkinstall to make a Slack-compatible TGZ package from a source code install (IIRC, it's been a while since I used Slack)

Well, you and me have our reasons
I just find slackware is the perfect distribution for, me
as I can browse the slackware site and find the source
in a few seconds (thanks to its powerfull on-line package
browser!)

Last time I went on gentoo site, I never succeed to do
the same thing (locate package sources and then see
the build scripts)

Now now, dont tell me you meant the filemanager? (;

Ive allways snickered away at the name.. And wonder how Gentoo and Gentoo can co-exist..

To ensure the most fun for all, a quote from linuxpackages.net:

lol