I just picked up an Acer Aspire 5515-5789 from Walmart for $348. It comes with Vista pre-installed but I was curious to see how well Gentoo works with it.
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Hardware:

  1. AMD Athlon 2650e 64 bit, single core at 1600mhz
  2. ATI Radeon X1200 (RS690M)
  3. 15.4" screen at 1280x800 (widescreen)
  4. 3 GB RAM
  5. 160 GB Hard Drive
  6. Atheros AR242x 802.11abg wireless
  7. Realtek RTL8101E ethernet

The first step is to create a partition for Linux. Go to Control Panel->System and Maintenance->Create and format hard disk partitions
You will see Disk 0 partitioned into a 10 GB partition and 2 69.52 GB partitions, one of which is used as C: and the other as D:
Right click on the d: partition and hit shrink volume. Reduce the size by enough to create your Linux system (I split it in half, leaving a 34.81 GB partition and another 34.71 GB of empty space)

Now we're ready to install Linux. Boot into the installer of your choice (in my case, I used systemrescuecd)

lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge [1002:7910]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx) [1002:7912]
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 2) [1002:7916]
00:07.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 3) [1002:7917]
00:12.0 SATA controller [0106]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA [1002:4380]
00:13.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0) [1002:4387]
00:13.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1) [1002:4388]
00:13.4 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4) [1002:438b]
00:13.5 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) [1002:4386]
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface [0101]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE [1002:438c]
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383]
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge [1002:438d]
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384]
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration [1022:1100]
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map [1022:1101]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller [1022:1102]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control [1022:1103]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791f]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02)


notable entries from /etc/make.conf

#used after you upgrade to gcc 4.3
CFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"

#used with gcc prior to 4.3
#CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -mtune=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
#CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -mtune=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"

MAKEOPTS="-j3"

Gentoo places the networking information in /etc/conf.d/net. It is possible to use both the ethernet and wi-fi connections, depending on what suits your fancy.
In my case, I use WPA-TKIP on my wireless router as well as static IPs. If you intend to use encryption, you'll need to emerge wpa-supplicant 

/etc/conf.d/net
config_eth0=( "192.168.1.144/24" )
routes_eth0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )

#wireless
modules=( "wpa_supplicant" )
wpa_supplicant_wan0=("-Dwext")
config_wlan0=( "192.168.1.145/24" )
routes_wlan0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )

/etc/wpa_supplicant/
# This is a network block that connects to any unsecured access point.
# We give it a low priority so any defined blocks are preferred.
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
ap_scan=1

network={
        ssid="your-ssid"
        scan_ssid=1
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        proto=WPA
        pairwise=TKIP
        group=TKIP
        psk="your-wpa-key"

The next step for me was to actually configure my kernel. Download my .config and copy it into /usr/src/linux
Then run:

make oldconfig
make -j3
make modules_install

Copy arch/x86/boot/bzImage to your preferred kernel location and edit your boot loader as required

Once you have the kernel setup, it's time to go about making the kernel bootable. I saw posts stating that Vista won't load if another bootloader is in the MBR, so we'll need a solution to that problem. Rather than installing your bootloader to the MBR, install it to the partition instead. In my case, I installed grub with the following commands:

grub
grub> root (hd0,3)
grub> setup (hd0,3)
grub> quit

Now, to finish making things bootable, I rebooted into Vista and used EasyBCD to add an option in the Vista bootloader.


Go to Add/Remove Entries, click on the Linux tab, select your bootloader type as well as the partition Linux exists on. Give the system a name for the boot menu and then hit Add Entry.
When you boot, Linux will now be a selectable option, which will then chainload to your Linux boot loader.

uname -a
Linux laptop2 2.6.27-gentoo-r8 #4 Thu Mar 5 22:46:29 EST 2009 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 2650e AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux


emerge --info

Portage 2.1.6.7 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.3, glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2, 2.6.27-gentoo-r8 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-2.6.27-gentoo-r8-x86_64-AMD_Athlon-tm-_Processor_2650e-with-glibc2.2.5
Timestamp of tree: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:30:01 +0000
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p39
dev-lang/python:     2.5.2-r7
dev-util/cmake:      2.4.8
sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1-r2
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.63
sys-devel/automake:  1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2
sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.26
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.27-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -mtune=native -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X acl acpi alsa amd64 berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode esd evo fam firefox fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv ipv6 isdnlog jpeg kde ldap libnotify lm_sensors mad midi mikmod mmx mp3 mpeg mudflap multilib ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl png ppds pppd python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime readline reflection sdl session spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg sysfs tcpd tiff truetype unicode usb vorbis xml xorg xulrunner xv zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="fbdev glint i810 intel mach64 mga neomagic nv r128 radeon savage sis tdfx trident vesa vga via vmware voodoo"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY

Congratulations!

Last modified 2009/03/08 Ken Witherow <ken@krwtech.com>