1 |
Philip Webb wrote: |
2 |
> 090114 Donnie Berkholz wrote: |
3 |
>> On 15:23 Wed 14 Jan 2009, Ben de Groot wrote: |
4 |
>>> Also, will we have an announcement on the www.gentoo.org frontpage? |
5 |
>>> This seems to me an important enough issue to inform our users about. |
6 |
>> Yeah, I'll get something up. I've got a few pending now. |
7 |
> |
8 |
> I've been using Gentoo since 2003 & have installed it in 2 machines. |
9 |
> I've also felt it necessary more than once to comment in LWN |
10 |
> in response to scare stories then circulating about "the death of Gentoo" |
11 |
> & how it was no longer putting out new versions reliably or on time. |
12 |
> The fact that 'version' doesn't mean the same for Gentoo as other distros |
13 |
> is not clear to the many people who haven't used Gentoo. |
14 |
> |
15 |
> I just had a look at the Gentoo home page, |
16 |
> as if I were a newcomer wanting to find out how to get started. |
17 |
> The 'about' page says nothing about the basic installation process, |
18 |
> so I went to 'installation docs', where the 1st 'installation resource' |
19 |
> is the 'Gentoo Handbook', which led me to get 'Gentoo AMD64 Handbook', |
20 |
> then 'about the Gentoo Linux installation'. |
21 |
> This emphasises that I can install Gentoo in many ways, |
22 |
> the 1st of which listed is 'from one of our installation CDs'. |
23 |
> |
24 |
> May I suggest that the 'about' page needs an additional 3rd section |
25 |
> entitled 'How do I go about installing Gentoo ?'. |
26 |
> I'm sure DB is capable of writing whatever is needed, |
27 |
> but it could be something like the following: |
28 |
> |
29 |
> Unlike most distributions, which rely on binary packages |
30 |
> and create a new version of the whole system at regular intervals, |
31 |
> Gentoo is installed once and thereafter kept upto-date by the user |
32 |
> by means of Portage (as above). Installing Gentoo is not difficult, |
33 |
> but it does require a bit more time & attention from the user, |
34 |
> which we at Gentoo consider to be a useful exercise for her or him |
35 |
> to get to know better how a Linux system really works under the hood. |
36 |
> All you typically need is a live CD and a copy of the Gentoo Handbook, |
37 |
> which you can find by following the link to 'installation docs' above. |
38 |
> |
39 |
> It might be an idea also to amend the line in the Handbook above, |
40 |
> so that 'one of our installation CDs' is not quite so prominent. |
41 |
> |
42 |
> HTH |
43 |
> |
44 |
|
45 |
The ability of new users to find their way around the site was something |
46 |
I tried to fix with a new sidebar menu[0], which has currently been |
47 |
implemented in http://gentoo.org/index2.xml - Unfortunately this is |
48 |
currently being held up by something to do with the GLSA's that's been |
49 |
hanging around incomplete for the past 6 months now (see the deps of bug |
50 |
#252157). |
51 |
|
52 |
I've tried posting on the relevant bugs to find out exactly what needs |
53 |
to be done, but no one seems to care, which is a real shame as the new |
54 |
index would be a vast improvement in my opinion. |
55 |
|
56 |
[0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/252157 |
57 |
|
58 |
AllenJB |