Going through the Gentoo install process was a great drinking from the firehose experience in understanding how Linux worked.
And compiling your own kernel, that feeling when it actually booted and worked after your many attempts failing and having to remount the install image...quite amazing.
some highschool senior hazed me as a freshman with a gentoo install but boy did I know linux after that. It's unfortunately caused me to have Opinions about systemd et al.