On Thu, 2013-12-19 at 20:17 -0800, W. Trevor King wrote:
> From: "W. Trevor King" <wking@tremily.us>
> 
> Thanks to Zero_Chaos and dwfreed for clarification on #gentoo-releng.
> ---
> Changes from v2:
> * Don't mention "Portage" in stage1 → stage2 to avoid confusion
>   between Porage-the-software and Portage-the-ebuild-tree.
> 
>  doc/HOWTO.txt | 13 ++++++++-----
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/doc/HOWTO.txt b/doc/HOWTO.txt
> index 5717f80..20427cf 100644
> --- a/doc/HOWTO.txt
> +++ b/doc/HOWTO.txt
> @@ -136,11 +136,14 @@ compiled toolchain, which is where Gentoo's stages come in.  The “base
>  system” contains the necessary build tools and supporting
>  infrastructure to get things going.  The stages are:
>  
> -1. System must be bootstrapped and the base system must be compiled
> -   (a new toolchain built with external seed tools).
> -2. Stage1 + bootstrapped (a new toolchain build with stage1 tools).
> -3. Stage2 + base system compiled (the base system built with stage2 tools).
> -4. Stage3 + non-base packages.
> +[options="header",frame="topbot",grid="none"]
> +|=======================================================================================
> +| Source         | Action                                                       | Result
> +| seed stage3    | Bootstrap a profile's `packages.build` toolchain             | stage1
> +| stage1         | Rebuild the toolchain with the package tree's `bootstrap.sh` | stage2
> +| stage2         | Compile the base `@system` packages                          | stage3
> +| stage3         | Compile additional `@world` packages                         | stage4
> +|=======================================================================================
>  
>  For more details on the differences between the stages, look at the
>  target helper scripts (e.g. `targets/stage1/*.sh`).


This looks good to me.  I like the table showing the steps.