Re: [gentoo-doc] Stage1/2 deprecation from Gentoo Handbook

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 09:57 +0530, Shyam Mani wrote:
> Sven Vermeulen wrote:
>
> > The Gentoo Release Engineering team is pushing us to remove stage1 and
> > stage2 references from the Gentoo Handbook. They are getting too many errors
> > because the user is not able to fully comprehend the implications of a
> > stage1 or stage2 installation.
>
> Huh? What?
>
> In which case, how would someone new to Gentoo do a Stage 1/2 install?
> Actually, I don't understand the request at all, since it makes no sense
> (atleast from this email :p).

Allow me to explain this better.  The issue is not with users who follow
the instructions so much as the ones that do not.  The problem with this
is *that is by design* a requirement for the lower stages.  Essentially,
the sole reason for a stage1 installation is to allow the users to
completely customize their bootstrap process.  It is not to simply give
more optimization.  The problem with this is we do *not* document any of
this customization.  To everyone that is going to come back to me and
say something like "I did a stage1 and followed the Handbook and it
worked" or similar, I respond with "You wasted your time."

A stage1 installation gives no benefits over a stage3 installation
*unless* you *know what you are doing* with compilers and bootstrapping
and plan on *modifying* the process.

> I installed Gentoo from Stage 1, following the handbook. I had *no*
> issues. I'm sorry, but removing portions of the handbook just because
> there are users who won't read (I know, I had a friend who goofed up 4
> Gentoo installs because he was lazy to read the handbook) is *not* a
> reason to remove perfectly correct and easy to understand documentation.

Alright.  What are you going to do when we quit supplying the stage1
tarball?  Running scripts/bootstrap.sh followed by an "emerge -e world"
gains you nothing over using the stage3 tarball from the beginning.  If
you are making modifications to the bootstrap script yourself, or doing
some funky cross-compiling that isn't supported by the bootstrap scripts
then yes, a stage1 is useful.  For everyone else, it is a waste of time
and something that wastes countless hours of Release Engineering's time.

> > This does surprise me, either because it seems rather simple to me, or
> > because I don't understand it myself (in which case we need(ed) better
> > information regarding the subject).
>
> As it surprises me. In case this does happen, What do they(we) plan to
> do for newbies wanting to do a Stage 1/2 install?

Personally, I'd like to see the tarballs dropped from our mirrors, but I
don't see that happening just yet.

> BTW, it so happened that I met Andrew Cowie (Operational Dynamics,
> Sydney) the other day here and we were discussing Gentoo. He felt that a
>  strong point that Gentoo has and others don't is that you get to
> actually see the things as they happen. You actually see bootstrapping.
> And that is a valid point. Removing references from the handbook takes
> the oppurtunity away of learning all that the first time you install
> Gentoo.

I'm sorry, but watching GCC text scroll by doesn't teach you a damn
thing.  Perhaps if these same users were actually opening the bootstrap
script up in their favorite text editor and actually reading what it
does they might be gaining a bit of understanding, but watching massive
scrolling isn't exactly learning.

> Anyone from releng here who can clarify why they need this done? TIA

I think the above should explain it pretty well.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux