**** Gentoo, he's new to Linux, if Slackware is on the edge for him do you think he has something going on where he wants 3 security updates a day? [/B]
but that is why hardened gentoo exists -- and it is not gentoo that has the problems, but the software -- if you install the newest software of anything on any version of linux -- even your precious slackware -- you are going to have security holes, but that is why the stable and hardened version exists. Furthermore, if you are complaining that gentoo has no security compared to Slackware, Slackware has no security compared to OpenBSD -- we might as well point jin29_neci OpenBSD and no matter what we should be prepared to provide free tech support until they are up to speed unless they are pointed to a version like Ubuntu or SUSE.

Furthermore in response to
A newbie to Linux should NOT be told to go for Gentoo.
That is not necessarily true. A person will learn quicker if you throw them into the fire and then let them work their way out (helping when necessary) than if you hold their hand the entire way spoon feeding them like SUSE does. By using nothing but YAST and KDE/Gnome a person might as well use windows because they are not really going to learn anything since there are shortcuts and wizards that already does everything.