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Re: [Sheflug] Gentoo Stage 1 & 2

----- Original Message ----- From: "Andre Grove" <andre.grove [at] gmail.com>
To: <shef-lug [at] list.sheflug.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Sheflug] Gentoo Stage 1 & 2


On 11/28/05, Wonkey Donkey <wonkey_donkey [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
I'm just wondering what views any Gentoo users out there may have about the
fact they have now removed the Stage 1 and Stage 2 installs from the
documentation, possibly with a view to ditching them completely in the
future. The Stage 1 & 2 tarballs can still be downloaded at present, but
with none of the documentation available. The latest handbook states they
are no longer supported.

Theres an awful lot of discussion going on about it over in the Gentoo
forums, with some quite balanced arguments for and against.

For me personally, I think I'll miss the satisfaction of knowing I started
the whole install from scratch using a Stage 1, and managed to get a full
system up and running. And of course, knowing *exactly* what has been
installed and what hasn't.

Any comments anybody......

Steve.

___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

GNU the choice of a complete generation.

i've only recently got into Gentoo, for the same reason as you:
knowing exactly what is installed, and haveing the satisfaction of
running a system that fits like hand-in-glove. i love being aple to
excluded things like ipv6 from programs, 'cause i know i wont be using
it anytime soon.
so to answer your question; because i'm relatively new to the Gentoo
experience, a Stage 1 install is a bit beyond me, but it is something
that i would like to tinker with (prehaps on the Mac i so deperately
want to get my hands on). as for the documentation; there are some
vague instructions in the online documentation, but not in the one
that comes with the install discs. i think that's wrong. to me the
philosophy of Linux is to learn and have a choice. Gentoo does so well
with giving you a choice of how you want things to run, you would
surely expect to have Stage 1 documentation on the install discs.
having said that though, i wish they wouldn't be so tight a$$ed about
software versions ('scuse the expression). it's hassle to try install
anything that is "masked". unless there is some trick that i don't
know of. i remember having to add about 20 lines to package.mask to
try and upgrade xorg.
anyway, there are pros and cons to everything i guess.
excuse the rambling......
___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

GNU the choice of a complete generation.

Well I should perhaps explain a little of what the stages were all about. (Apologies in advance if the message formatting screws up. I'm on a very new machine that only has a quick & dirty windoze setup on it right now).

There were 3 'Stages' in total, any of which could be used as the building blocks for a new system. The real difference between the stages was the stuff that was included in the stage, and whether or not it was precompiled.

Stage 1 had virtually no precompiled stuff in it at all. The idea here was that you took care of the basics ie. disk partitioning, setting up /boot, /swap and /. You then downloadad a small tarball that when uncompressed gave you just enough source and a basic compiler setup to be able to compile a basic command line system. That included gcc, glibc, binutils and a few other bits. You basically compiled a new toolchain, and then built up your system from there. Building the toolchain was the sole purpose of the 'bootstrap' you carried out during that stage.

Stage 2 had this toolchain already compiled. It was available for a number of archs, and had been built using a set of generic compile options that were considered to be safe and reasonably optimal, given the architecture. The exact stuff included here was more than just the toolchain.

Stage 3 took Stage 2 one step further and provided you with a fully compiled system including, if I remember rightly kde/gnome, and all the associated stuff. It saved a huge amount of compile time, and meant you could get a fully working system up and running quite quickly. Ideal for those who don't want to tinker or fine tune their system.

Obviously there are advantages to all 3 stages depending what you wanted and how you wanted to achieve it.

The one thing that attracted me to it from the start was, as the web page stated, 'its all about choice'. I also liked the idea of being able to start the system from nothing, making sure that at each step the settings were created for my exact hardware setup, and then compiled around that. As Linux goes, theres nothing more customised or suited to your own requirements. A long time ago, I began to hate with a vengeance, the one-size-fits-all approach of so many vendors out there. I didn't have the same powerful hardware they used in there 'generic' setup, and I certainly had no wish for the 'average' package selections they had pre-chosen. Yes, I know there are package management tools to remove the stuff I didn't want. But I much prefer starting with a blank canvas. Its really the only way that I can know 100% what is really on there.

The recommended steps right now are to use a Stage 3 installation, modify your settings once it is installed, and then rebuild the toolchain and then the rest of the system. I can see the advantage from the developers point of view; it was a major headache for them in the forums. They recommend basically starting with a fully installed generic setup, then modify/rebuild/remove stuff until you have what you want, instead of starting from scratch and then adding just what you want. To me, I'm somewhat disappointed. It has removed some of the choice, and is trying to force me into setting up a system on their terms, in a way I don't want to. A Stage 1 install was also a good learning experience. Disk partitioning, file systems (Although you do these with all 3 stages), you learned how package management worked, what to do if you got circular dependencies and all manor of other stuff. Stage 3 is an attempt to remove some of that because that is where a lot of the problems arose. But those problems were what helped me at least, to learn about what I was doing and about how the bits of the jigsaw fitted together when building the system. And with the forums being so active, and having lots of very taleneted people helping out, you rarely, if ever at all, were able to post a question and not get a good answer that described what to do and why.

Oh well. /rant over.

One more thing; the masked packages you mentioned. Depending on how daring you wish to be, there are 2 options I would pick from. One was to include ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" in your make file to allow all the masked stuff to be used if required. If there are only one or two masked packages, simply include the keywords statement above at the beginning of the command line when you start the compile ie. ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge <package_name>. And of course, always add the -p option first so you get to see exactly what it will do before it does it, and which version of the package it intends to use.

I shall now get off the soapbox and start looking around the net for an original set of Stage 1 instructions. Once again, apologies for any poor formatting.

Steve.
___________________________________________________________________

Sheffield Linux User's Group -
http://www.sheflug.co.uk/mailfaq.html

GNU the choice of a complete generation.