[gentoo-dev] bootstrap failure and documentation segestions

[gentoo-dev] bootstrap failure and documentation segestions

[John (EBo) David]

Gontron recently turned me on to Gentoo... look cool.  Follows are a
review of problems I encountered bootstrapping Gentoo, suggestions where
it can be fixed, and also some suggestions on documentation fixes.


Bootstrap failure:

in the install documentation (code listing 23) we have:

   # emerge --usepkg system
   The --usepkg option tells emerge to check for a 
   pre-built binary package first and to use it if available.

When doing a source only build without precompiled binaries there is no
package information in portage/pakages/ALL (or similar path).  The
current version of emerge then dies with an esoteric error and does
nothing.  Removing the "--usepkg" causes emerge to then function
properly.  Since the documentation reads "...use it if available" I
consider this behavior a bug in emerge.   Proposed/suggested fix: if
file not found, trap error and run as if --usepkg not given as argument.


Documentation:

the install documentation is involved enough that I went ahead and
printed it out ahead of time, took notes from my current configuration,
and began install.  The fixed width of the documentation causes a number
of annoyances with viewing.  While this is not a big problem for me it
can cause problems with low res monitors (for old machines) and browsers
in large font mode (necessary for visually impaired).  The problem I had
is that the text is roughly 0.5" wider than a standard printed page, and
some of the instructions were almost rendered unintelligible do to the
missing, unprinted, information.  suggested fix: make browser/printer
friendly version(s) and possibly conform to W3C formatting guidelines.


I would like to thank you all for making Gentoo generally available, and
Gontran specifically for helping me find the emerge problem in addition
to all his other help.

  Best regards,


  EBo --

Re: [gentoo-dev] bootstrap failure and documentation segestions

[Grant Goodyear]

> When doing a source only build without precompiled binaries there is no
> package information in portage/pakages/ALL (or similar path).  The
> current version of emerge then dies with an esoteric error and does
> nothing.  Removing the "--usepkg" causes emerge to then function
> properly.  Since the documentation reads "...use it if available" I
> consider this behavior a bug in emerge.   Proposed/suggested fix: if
> file not found, trap error and run as if --usepkg not given as argument.

That's definitely a bug; --usepkg should be entirely transparent to
the user.  Please post a bug at bugs.gentoo.org, if you would.

> the install documentation is involved enough that I went ahead and
> printed it out ahead of time, took notes from my current configuration,
> and began install.  The fixed width of the documentation causes a number
> of annoyances with viewing.  While this is not a big problem for me it
> can cause problems with low res monitors (for old machines) and browsers
> in large font mode (necessary for visually impaired).  The problem I had
> is that the text is roughly 0.5" wider than a standard printed page, and
> some of the instructions were almost rendered unintelligible do to the
> missing, unprinted, information.  suggested fix: make browser/printer
> friendly version(s) and possibly conform to W3C formatting guidelines.

It's bug #222, which we've had for a while.  I know that somebody was
working on converting our xml to pdf, but I think that project proved
overly truculant.  It's not our first priority right now, but we are
working on it.  Any help would be gratefully appreciated!

-g2boojum-