Nine years ago, Calculate Linux was born.
It came proudly as a tarball and an installer. The latter, named ‘calculate’, was a separate tool; besides system installation, it handled service settings and user sessions. New versions were released at a monthly basis, but only some Gentooist fellows, presumably not happy enough with Gentoo, were interested. All flags and masks were applied at installation time. As no profiles existed, the dependencies had to be solved manually whenever a new release was made available.
Even then, though, CL was slowly but surely gaining popularity. A system combining Gentoo’s power with fast and painless installation made many people feel enthusiastic. “You could of course install Gentoo on your computer, but what if a friend asked you to do the same for him? And what if he were not the only one?” was a punchline argument at the time.
Presently, Calculate Linux is no longer a single system file. A variety of flavours are provided, featuring each a different desktop environment. More general settings are therefore needed, so that to avoid conflicts and administration issues, but all CL desktops share the same looks: we wanted you to be able to switch between desktop environments without feeling lost, nor having to spend hours trying to understand how your system works. It includes a collection of complex tools indeed, so let me spare you the description 
How could we keep developing this project if it were not for you? Thank you for making (us make) Calculate better!