Back in 1999, Daniel Robbins released the first version of Gentoo Linux, which quickly became renowned for its unmatched speed. Fast forward to September 2009 and you'll see that Gentoo is still one of the most appreciated source-based Linux distributions. Since this venerable distro has just had its 10th birthday, the developers decided to make a special LiveDVD release, Gentoo 10.0, packed with many one-off improvements that should give users one more reason to celebrate.

In the official release announcement, Matthew Summers highlights the "superb list of packages" included on the LiveDVD. However, what users will certainly notice when starting up Gentoo 10.0 for the first time is the awesome artwork made by Ben Stedman and Alex Legler. These two graphic artists didn't stop at creating a special wallpaper for this occasion, they reached out of the desktop and made matching DVD and Jewel case inlays, and a DVD label. These extras are available on the Gentoo website, and they make for a smooth graphical transition from the moment you take the disk out of the case to when the desktop environment starts up. You can get a glimpse of the default wallpaper by clicking the thumbnail at the beginning of this article.

Powering this latest Gentoo release is the Linux kernel 2.6.30, which is tweaked with custom patches, version 2.18 of the GNU Binary Utilities, GCC 4.3.2, GLIBC 2.9 and BASH 4.0. Along with those come Python 2.6.2 and Perl 5.8.8 for your scripting needs, and even Speakup 3.1.3 for the visually impaired.

After booting the DVD you will be greeted by KDE 4.3.1, but if you aren't at home on this Qt-based desktop environment, just pick one of the following: GNOME 2.26.3, Xfce 4.6.1, Enlightenment 0.16.8.15, Openbox 3.4.7.2, Fluxbox 1.1.1, TWM 1.0.4, or look into the portage system for more. The desktop wouldn't be complete without a web browser, and there are plenty of those to choose from, like Mozilla Firefox 3.5.3, Arora 0.7.11, Opera 10.0 or Epiphany 2.26.3, just to name a few. Getting in touch with others is easy when you have Pidgin 2.5.9, Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.23 and Ekiga 2.0.12 at your fingertips.

If you want to use Gentoo 10.0 in the office, OpenOffice 3.1.1, Abiword 2.6.4, GNUCash 2.2.9, Scribus 1.3.3.11 or GIMP 2.6.4 will surely help, and since writing endless documents can be greatly sped up if you have some background music, Amarok 2.1.1 and MPlayer 1.0_rc4 will come in handy.

Download Gentoo 10.0 right now from Softpedia.