our current package format is somewhat similar in idea to Gentoos ebuilds but is completely incompatible due to the many technical differences.

our naming of variables, phases and libraries describes the concepts much better compared to Gentoo.

we have several new phases allowing much better control of the build process.

our options handling is much improved compared to the USE flags of Gentoo.

the default functions provided for various phases removes the need for explicit phase functions from most packages.

we're not afraid of huge changes to the package format.

Most distributions sucks badly in the way they handle crosscompiling, multilib and other fun stuff

work is ongoing on this topic and there'll probably be huge changes but we have a fairly decent idea how to handle all the multi stuff sanely.

We're writing a completely new initsystem free of all the weird, useless legacy stuff and based on user needs in the 21st century.

I'll be talking about this at the FOSS Aalborg conference in Aalborg, Denmark on june 4th. Slides will be made available after the conference.

we take a no bullshit approach to our work and aren't afraid to tell each other when something sucks and take it at face value.

we keep the developer team small on purpose - there's much less bullshit this way and we can all agree on the direction needed for Exherbo.

Open source is said to be about scratching your particular itches - and I'vebeen working my butt off for the last several months along with a small,select team of developers doing just that.All our hard work have so far resulted in a very experimental linux

distribution that's definitely not ready for users yet (or even developers)but does have quite a few interesting ideas and features.In particular we've been working on and continue to focus on:We have lots of additional features and ideas for the future planned that wehaven't even started on yet so Exherbo is expected to be in turmoil for quitea while yet. That said I think we have an interesting base already andinterested people are encouraged to take a look at it. Just don't expectanything to work (seriously!). Ongoing development is pretty fast and we'restill at a stage where we happily break everything without second thoughts toinstalled Exherbo systems or users.More info is available on http://www.exherbo.org . More specific questions canbe asked in #exherbo on the freenode irc network (point your irc client atchat.freenode.net) or by /msg'ing me directly (I'm using the nick 'kloeri') oremailing me at kloeri@exherbo.org . Please keep in mind that I'm usually fairlybusy and might take a little while before I'm able to answer your questions.