What should I do to switch to Gentoo?
 

Currently, I have been using Mandrake Linux. But as I learned that the official Mandrake Linux 10.0 doesn't have gnome 2.6, I wanted to compile it myself. But Mandrake Linux is very reliant on RPM so it didn't work out very well. I am very interested in gentoo's portage system or apt-get in Debian but Gentoo seems to be more up to date. But I do not know what to do to prepare switching distributions.

Also, how good is the Gentoo partitioner? I currently use ReiserFS and I don't want to have to format my home directory if i dont have to.

Gentoo's partitioner is fdisk, you have that on mandrake so you try that out in command line. For information on how to install use the gentoo handbook. As for the home directory, is it on a seperate partition?

Is your home directory on a separate partition?

If it is, you're golden....if not, well you'll have to back it up...or make another partition.

I switched from Mandrake to Gentoo and since I already had my partitions set up, it was easy as pie...I mean REALLY easy. However, I had my home partition separate and I simply didn't format it (although this can lead to some awkwardness with different apps.).

i used the auto allocate thing on mandrake so i do have separate partitions.

Great, when you go to install don't format it. There is a section on the gentoo handbook, section 4.j. , where you mount all the partitions. Just add something like this

mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home
mount /dev/hdxx /mnt/gentoo/home


Gentoo Handbook is a must