Linux Password Policy
 

How can I set password policys?

For instance, allowing dictionary words, which at the moment my Gentoo box is refusing to accept from users..

/me pokes around his Suse box...

Well, I found no way to change the kind of passwords it accepts except for password lenght and encryption method. Most likely there's a way that nobody ever uses or more possibly you cant change it to allow them because its basically really stupid to do so.

If you need dictionary words that badly just type 0yourword1 or use their age for the numbers... and capatalize every other letter or something silly to keep the computer happy.

Most likely this configuration is made from PAM system (Pluggable Authentication Modules).
Configuration for this is found in /etc/pam.d directory
Every service using PAM has a config file listed there.
Check for the file login and have a look in it. This file configures what is needed to be logged in to the system. I'm not qualified to make any configuration modifications but take a look at the documentation for PAM found in /usr/share/doc directory somewhere.