Talking Gentoo?

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,
Thanks to everybody who got me going with a Speakup-enabled 2.6.6 kernel.
And now, for another question.  Currently I'm using Debian 3.  However, I've
always been a bit fascinated with Gentoo's Portage system, which downloads
packages as source then compiles them right on the spot.  I probably won't
switch actually, but has anybody managed to get a talking Gentoo install
using Speakup, and if so, how?
As for stability, etc. is Gentoo pretty stable?  I'm using Debian 3 stable
which, as many of you probably know, is quite a bit out of date.  I would
assume Gentoo would be more current.
Thanks for any advice and thoughts.
Jayson.