A Clean Linux Install?

linux_penguin asks: "I've been using Linux for a few years now, and have only just hit the wall I believe most intermediate users hit at some time... I hate RPM and all of its idiosyncracies, and I hate all the clutter and unnecessary junk most distributions install. I wanted to compile Enlightenment from CVS, and it turned into a major hassle due to RPM dependencies and libraries being spread everywhere. What I would like to achieve is an absolute basic install, and then build the system up slowly with source (with most stuff being installed into /usr/local hopefully, leaving the basic install clean and untouched). I know this is a fairly tall order, but has anyone achieved this to any degree and can anyone give me advice? What's the best distro for *this purpose*? Or am I better off building my box from the ground up, to the point of compiling *everything* from source? I would like to use this as a learning experience to gain greater knowledge of Linux and how it works."