Ben de Groot <yngwin@g.o> posted 493355A7.90503@g.o,
excerpted below, on  Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:10:31 +0100:

> The info is there, but most users never read more than part 1 of the
> Handbook (that is, the installation part). We could, and should in my
> opinion, add a big fat warning towards the end of the installation part,
> that there is extremely useful information to be found in the other
> parts of the Handbook. Maybe we could especially mention some of the
> more useful topics, and the elog system would be one of them.

Well, at the end of the Handbook, Pt 1, Installation, in Chapter 12, 
Where to go from here, it already mentions Pt 2, Working with Gentoo.  It 
really should mention Pts 3 & 4, Working with Portage and Gentoo Network 
Configuration, as well, the chapter of interest here of course being in 
Working with Portage.

So yes, we really could improve the end of the Handbook, pt 1, Where to 
go from here, having it mention Pt 3 & 4 as well as Pt 2.  That's 
something we can and should do, absolutely.

Beyond that, however, Gentoo has never been about hand-holding.  It 
expects you to be big enough to cross the street on your own without 
further hand-holding if it provides the stop light telling you when it's 
safe to do so; to be able to find and read the documentation, which 
Gentoo does have a generally excellent reputation in the community for 
providing, on your own.  There are plenty of other distributions out 
there for those who prefer to let the distribution make the decisions and 
take the responsibility.  Gentoo has always been about giving the user 
the ability to decide and configure that for himself, after reading the 
documentation where necessary.  If the user can't do that after we've 
gone to all the work of providing both the means and the documentation on 
configuring, right there in the official handbook even, with links and 
references to the handbook quite well distributed already, well, maybe 
that user really /should/ be looking at a different distribution.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman