[gentoo-dev] Re: Decision to remove stage1/2 from installation documentation

[R Hill]

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 16:26 +0100, Marc Hildebrand wrote:
>> Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>> [..]
>>> Now, on the topic of the tarballs.
>>>
>>> Give me one example of something that you can do with a stage1 or stage2
>>> tarball that you cannot with a stage3 tarball.
>>>
>> Answer: Download it in less than 10 minutes.
>
> I'd love to see you do the same with a stage1 tarball + all the
> distfiles you'll need to go from stage1 to stage3.

What about someone on dialup who needs a rescue CD to boot into their system
after they've trashed the MBR?  88MiB vs 14MiB is a big difference in this case.

> In case you're wondering, it's more than the size of a stage3 tarball,
> by quite a bit.
>
>> The question of interest is: Will we keep changing things without a GLEP
>> that should *never* be touched without one?
>
> Since when is this GLEP material?

Are you kidding?  Since it's a fundamentally significant and highly visible
change in the workings of Gentoo.  The three-stage build system is one of the
distinguishing characteristics of Gentoo, up there with source-based, install
from scratch, and highly customizable.  Every review of Gentoo I've ever seen at
least mentions it.

For the record, I don't think it matters if stage 1 goes away.  Make stage 3 the
Official and Supported Way of installing Gentoo, but provide stage 1 as a
minimal LiveCD/RescueCD option.  Make a mention in the install documentation
along the lines of

"It is also possible to do a full install of Gentoo using a minimal Rescue
LiveCD and a network connection.  This method is depreciated and should only be
used if circumstances prevent you using the Universal LiveCD.  Note that we do
_not_ provide support for systems built using minimal installations, so you're
on your own."

(linkity to a new separate stage 1 doc page)



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