No. They can choose precompiled binaries, compiled on someone elses computer. The main attractions of gentoo is portage and the CFLAGS/USE allowing the greatest optimization. Vidalinux strips you, pretty much, of the cflag optimization, meaning the binaries you install, are a) compiled by someone else (not optimized) missing cflags (but then again vidalinux butchers that great feature gentoo has) Im sorry but I disagree. The butchering of CLFAGS/USE renders portage useless imo. Slackware assumes you know what you're doing, if you need a dependency, you get it. Its package manager is actuall