Installing Gentoo is not difficult per se, but it's certainly an effective way to learn low level system administration and a lot about the Linux ecosystem. Now of course it's entirely possible to install Gentoo and not take away anything from it (i.e. just mindlessly copy-and-paste from the Gentoo Handbook and never attempt to understand what's going on), but even if you just apply minimal effort, it's a great way to learn a lot about Linux.

For example, a typical Stage 3 install will involve manually partionioning (possibly even using RAID/LVM), formating a FS, loop back mounting, chrooting, compiling a kernel, installing GRUB, adding users/groups, networking, cron, etc. That's just off the top of my head. If you make a mistake (like I did installing GRUB manually the first time), you can learn a whole lot more when you try to fix it.

Gentoo also has excellent documentation and, by virtue of being an niche/ethusiast distro, a much more advanced user base compared to most Linux distributions. I'm not saying there aren't folks on other distros that know more than someone using Gentoo, but on average, most Gentoo users (especially those active in their forums) tend to be fairly advanced users.

Finally, Gentoo is extremely flexible, so if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty, it's certainly possible. Although Stage 1 installs (where you bootstrap your compiler) are no longer officially supported, there's active threads in the official forums on how to do it. If you want to play in the embedded space, Gentoo has one of the best cross-compiling systems out there (a benefit of being source based).

The long and short of it is, installing Gentoo is a great way for someone sincerely interested to learn a lot about Linux.

In my personal experience, using a tablet or phone as a remote over using an actual, dedicated universal remote is one of those things that's better in theory than in practice. This is primarily due to these remotes having a tendency to walk away from the entertainment room, the relatively poor battery life (hours vs days), and the lack of intelligent help & context switching (compared to a Harmony). I can't speak for "ILink", but Logitech has their actual Harmony remotes down to a science. I never understood why someone would spend so much on a remote until I finally bit the bullet and got one (880), and I can honestly say it's one of my best investments in my home entertainment system. Beyond just being able to build macros, it does great things like having an interactive help for when one of the steps fails -- this is fantastic for folks like my wife who no longer needs to know what input the TV & the receiver needs to be set to, what to turn on/change when she wants to watch a bluray, etc. I liked my 880 so much that I grabbed a Harmony One last year. Also, if you're price conscious like me, you can regularly find refurbs for $100 and new ones on sale for $130 around Black Friday. I have no association with Logitech, but the Harmony line is really fantastic.

I believe they missed a big opportunity by not delivering a Verizon LTE capable phone in the $350-$450 range. There is a significant portion of users who are still grandfathered on to "unlimited" data that are approaching upgrade time (e.g., early adopters who bought VZW's first LTE phone, the HTC Thunderbolt back in Dec 2010). There's a large market of people that would choose an unsubsidized LTE Nexus 4 which lets them keep unlimited data for that price. The competitive subsidized phones (i.e. GS3 or Note 2) would only be about $200 or so less but would cost the user their unlimited data plan which a lot of people value more than $200.

I personally believe that the only way for RIM to survive is to pull a Sega, exit the hardware business, and become a software company. Their email software is the best mobile client I've ever used and in the time I've had five BB's, I've also had several Windows Mobile Std/Pro (Moto Q, Q9M, Samsung Saga), iOS (iPod Touch), and Android (HTC Eris, Thunderbolt) devices (but no Windows Phone 7) so I do have something to compare to. The only email client that I could comfortably manage 100+ emails a day is the BB. If they do go the software route, I would hope they strongly control which hardware they will run on so as to control the CX.

Interesting, I work in downtown SF and live in the East Bay and have no problem getting a full day out of a charge on my Tbolt. I picked up the phone around launch, and on the original stock firmware, battery life was pretty abysmal. I'm currently running a custom rom (Liquid Thunderbread 2.6), and now easily get a day on normal use (including roughly an hour of continuous browsing on BART each workday). My wife has the same phone and can get a couple days (she works in the East Bay and uses the Internet much less than I). She also uses a custom rom (Liquid Smooth 3.2), so that may be the difference (I believe both our phones use the "SMARTASS" governor and a clemsyn kernel).

While I agree with your post in general, your example of "a file server with a small set of files" isn't the best example of a case for a SSD. If that "small set of files" can fit into RAM, then a SSD isn't going to buy you much benefit outside of initially being quicker to read the data into memory. However file servers really are data set dependent, so without knowing the details, it's hard to say what's the best upgrade.

RAM is definitely not always the most beneficial upgrade for personal computers. Adding RAM definitely suffers diminishing returns to scale (which is generally true with everything, but RAM benefits seem to diminish more rapidly). It has been my experience that RAM beyond 4GB is much less beneficial than a SSD for typical personal computer usage. For example I upgraded my personal laptop from a 7200 RPM drive to a SSD and from 4GB to 8GB, and the SSD improvement is significantly more noticeable.

I've been running various flavors of Linux as my primary OS on laptops for roughly a decade, and I highly recommend the Thinkpad line of laptops (originally by IBM, now by Lenovo). Thinkpads tend to use mostly Intel parts, and Intel has great support for open drivers (see intellinuxgraphics.org or intellinuxwireless.org). There's also a great community at ThinkWiki (http://www.thinkwiki.org) which focuses on Linux on Thinkpads. My current personal laptop is a T400, and everything works (suspend to RAM, hibernate, sound, video, WiFi, etc.). My wife also has a Thinkpad, a SL400, and likewise has no problems running Linux (it actually runs much better than Vista which it came with). I was actually able to get my T400 from Lenovo's Outlet without Windows installed (it came with FreeDOS), so I even got out of having to pay the Windows tax. The Thinkpad is Lenovo's business line, and the build quality (on their T & W series in particular) is fantastic, and personally I can't live without their Trackpoint.

I have found that if you don't mind doing your homework ahead of time (mainly checking parts on the "customize your machine" section of OEM sites), it's fairly trivial to find a machine that fully supports Linux. With that said, Thinkpads are still my top recommendation (followed by Dell's Latitude line which also has a Trackpoint). I have no connection with Lenovo; I'm just a happy customer. For the record, I run Gentoo on my T400 and my wife's SL400 (she previously ran Ubuntu on it).

I too am very satisfied with my gTab which I picked up for around $280 from Woot in March. However one thing to note though is that Viewsonic is almost certainly not going to provide an official Honeycomb build. This is an issue because we need some binary drivers to get hardware acceleration working in third party HC based ROM's. Personally I've stuck with the Gingerbread based VEGAn-TAB ROM mentioned by the OP (and overall I'm happy), but if I were purchasing a new tablet today I would opt for one with an official HC build by the vendor.

Well the actual quote was, "I really think from an end-user perspective and a third-party-developer perspective GNOME and KDE are different operating systems. As much as MeeGo is a different operating system," and to an extent I can see his point from a end-user perspective. Obviously the underpinnings are the same, but for non-technical users who only use the GUI and never see/care what's below,l it's a significantly different experience. Especially with how Gnome and KDE these days even handle interacting with hardware slightly differently (e.g. GVFS v.s. KIO).

For example my wife currently runs Gnome 2.32 on Gentoo (which I maintain). Switching her to KDE would be a much more significant change than say switching to a different disto running Gnome 2.32. I know this to be the case because I originally had her running Ubuntu before we were married, and the switch to Gentoo (but maintaining Gnome) was painless for her.

For folks who've never heard of Zediva, they apparently let customers stream newly released movies. Their business model was that the customers rent the DVD and DVD player which are both located at their facility, and the customers access them over the Internet. Clever approach, but this shutdown should be of no surprise.

More importantly, Android applications are all designed with a touch based user interface in mind. One of the major issues with previous generations of tablets was that they relied on traditional applications which could work with a touch interface, but they were never designed for it. This made using the device for non-basic functions a headache. I remember the Oqo quite well, and as a geek I wanted one (or a Sharp Zarus...). However as an engineer and end user, I knew it was never practical and would be primarily an expensive toy.