From interview: it started as a research project. The author wanted a distribution that uses the least system resources with maximum performance.
He started with archlinux, moved on to gentoo and to go even deeper - found the infamous "linux from scratch" and started to shape his own distro.
It's interesting how often silent protagonists DO have their own personality.
For example, in The Legend of Zelda series Link is practically mute with only way to express itself is couple dozen lines of text and grunts. But 90% of people playing him - end up with the same annoying, unpatient little rascal who's going home to home destroying everyone's pots for fun.
Another good example is Doomguy - he's unhuman, full of bloodlust and anger, unstoppable force. You can't project yourself onto Doomguy, he's it's own character without any lines of dialogue and even before Doom games had any cutscenes.
Other silent protagonists that I believe have their own distinct personality: Jack from Bioshock 1, Kirby, Samus from Metroid, Chell from Portal, Claude from Gta 3, ...