[gentoo-dev] Feedback from the first install

[Stefan Schaarschmidt]

Hello,

before I continue I want to thank you for the work
of bringing the idea of portage to linux. The idea
behind it is something I really like...

Now some critizism, notes and questions:

- I consider myself an experienced Linux User (about
  8 years or so), having started with Slackware from
  a floppy-tape i know about partitioning,fstab and
  even modlines ;-)
  But if I had started with SuSE Linux 2 years bevor
  I wouldn't  know about partition numbering schemes,
  fstab entries (whats a <dump/pass>?) or even the
  IP number of a DNS server.
  Nothing wrong with that, but I think it would help
  some people, if at the beginning of the doc were a
  little hint: You will probably not succeed, if you
  don't know about....
- I liked the ease of connecting to the internet with
  the Start-CD and the freshly born Linux, but only
  because I have a wonderfull old 386/40 sitting there
  as a router... Just for me: Is there a thought about
  those people connecting via modem (probably not,
  the download would be just TOO slow)? Here in Germany
  you have DSL via a so called DSL Router, but this
  works only via PPPoE. I'd say I had no chance, if I
  hadn't the firewall/router between me and the DSL
  router... Just a thought for alternative net
  connections...
- USE Variables: The default ones are told to be
  sufficiant for the most people. Any reasons "gnome"
  isn't in it?? (Yes I'm from the KDE fraction, but I
  added it, when I finally realized the missing... After
  all, its all about choice.)
- portage-user.html in your doc dir seems a little aged:
  I really was irritated, when I read about creating
  /usr/portage, which was there. And so I really was
  undetermined whether I have to "emerge rsync", or if
  this is outdated information as well.
- When the machine was happily compiling I looked at it
  from time to time. I would suggest some kind of beep
  when an emerge-command is done (successfull or not).
  This would help those people playing "Star Wars -
  Super Bombad Racing" in the next room or reading the
  last Pratchett book. I could imagine some environment
  variable which, when set, determines the number of
  beeps to inform about the finishing.
- Speeking of staring at a compiling/emerging machine:
  I'm understanding that warnings occur during compiling
  but I could quickly read a message from the emerge cmd,
  before it dissolved (the message i mean): "Be sure to
  unmerge libsig  versions < ...".
  Who is ever expected to read that? :-)
- When I emerged kde, the first time I got an error:
  viewer-qt.cc: ../pango/pangox.h
  31: X11/Xlib no such file or directory.
  When I started it again later, no such error appeared...
- I emerged "vi", which plainly died whith a segfault
  when starting.
  This is no issue for me, because I then realized, that
  I instead was wanting vim (which worked fine), but
  vi seems to be broken (on my machine at least)
- Strange effects: I got quite a lot of
  "/root/.kde/share/.... permission denied" and some
  "error creating /root/.qt". I don't understand this
  one since I think emerge is running with root rigths
  when called by root?
  This had the effect, that after I got X/KDE running
  I had the KDM login, but after that the plain ugly
  twm :-(
  The /etc/skel did not contain any configuration files
  as well for KDE/X/... so I neither could copy it to
  the /root/ dir nor do I have a template for users...
  Any ideas, how I get a bunch of fine config files
  which allow me to see the beauty of the new KDE?
- Last point: when speaking of users: I miss some hints
  in the docs when to create a "normal" user...
  AFTER emerging as much as possible packets, to have a
  giant /etc/skel to profit from or BEFORE so that
  configs might be written to the home dirs.

This has become quite a long mail but I would appreciate
any answers to the points above

Thank you for reading and answering
Stefan Schaarschmidt