I can think of a couple of useful gentoo features:

1) i686-pc-linux-uclibc configuration. uclibc is a nice space saver. probably need glibc for some features/packages, but uclibc will do most things

3) ability to nfsmount invariants like /usr/portage and /archive/pub/linux/distfiles (I think normal people use /usr/portage/distfiles) so that each user would not need to rsync fetch files. IIRC, and you guys have a local gentoo mirror, but it would still save the (considerable) work that rsync does in stating/digesting files.

2) I was mis director of a small company. I found it useful to have a /boot partition that contained busybox and a dropbear ssh. server. My boot sequence went like this:
1) mount /boot as root partition
2) e2fsck and mount root partition as /mnt
3) for each partition in /mnt/etc/fstab, run e2fsck
If (2 or 3 failed) {
run /sbin/init on the /boot partition, which would
start the dropbear server and send mail/icq messages to admins:
the dropbear server saved me a cross-town drive several times.
} else {
pivot_root to /mnt and exec normal startup
}

Very useful. I'd be willing to code it up if you guys think it would be useful.

Another useful variation: always start dropbear, allowing /dev/root to be encrypted, without requiring physical access to boot the system. Just ssh in and enter the passphrase. Might not be useful in your config, since your guys would still have the ability to see anything in ram or /root once it was mouted. But I liked it for the accounting server, to which nobody else had physical access.

Sorry, didn't notice the archive request below, or I would have just followed up.

One more suggestion: if you choose to do the rsync partition/nfs mount option, and you use the device mapper, using a snapshot device during emerge sync would allow updates to the rsync repository to be atomic from the user's perspective.

Just thought I would add there is no local gentoo mirror, it has been discussed several times but never implemented.

Adam

If you misdirected a small company, then why should we listen to you?

Misdirection is the crux of the art of war.