Why does gentoo seem to have weird names for stuff like compiling. Why call it emerging when your compiling. I might give gentoo a go one day, but it seems its just trying to be different and complicated for no reason. Every other distro follows certain conventions, is gentoo just trying to be the last bastion of linux geekness or what.

It isn't true that gentoo calls things their own way: Compiling is only a part of emerging, the big thing (not the compiling time) being merging the compiled package into your system, so it works nicely with the rest of it

Other than the initial install process, Gentoo is far from complicated.

I would even argue that the initial install of gentoo isn't that hard; anyone with mediocre skills using the basic commandline tools can install it easily.

But alas as we move towards this "desktop ideal", people come into contact with the commandline tools less and less...

It's a meta-distribution. So Gentoo will be different in some ways than a typical distribution.

Other than the installation, using Gentoo is just like using any other Linux. The portage system is excellent too.

I love Gentoo, and portage has such a large collection of software, I have yet to come across something I need to go find the source for myself.

I've managed to find one or two things, but only when looking for seriously obscure software.

I've also had trouble getting GKrellM plugins to compile, for some reason. Other than that, portage has so far been infallible.

I've had some problems with Gentoo, but not as much as I have had with Redhat.
Talk about ease of use, I would rate Gentoo to be a bit easier to configure and manage than Redhat.

Doh!!! come to think of it, I can take complicated shots playing snooker and pool but ask me to shoot a straight shot and I somehow always botch it up about 4 out of 5 times.

Regards.

Emerge is the name of a program that can:-

Check what programs have an update available, download the updates, compile and install them.
Check what dependancies are required when you install a new program, download, compile and install them.
Search Portage for a package and give you a description of the package.
View the changelog for a program.
Apply patches to source code.
Remove a program.

and other stuff as well.

It is Gentoos package manager.

When you install a program with emerge it downloads an ebuild, a package that includes the source code and other information as well, and uses the extra information to modify its behavior. It does more than just compile.

So if your going to use the program emerge to manage your installation, it makes sense to say you are emerging a package rather than compiling a package. That way the person you are talking to can assume all dependancies are resolved, the Portage database reflects your system, the correct flags were used in compiling etc.