Re: [gentoo-dev] Build Doc Error

["orange-pc.ces.clemson.edu" <grant@grantgoodyear.org>]

> Hmmm... I thought this was a distro for people who KNOW what they're doing
> ;-)
> Maybe, instead of creating such a symlink, there could be a short mention in
> the docs about the path to the files being relative to /boot.
> There are so many things newbies (of which I am one) have to learn the hard
> way that this one, in comparison, is very minor.

Why?  I'm not sure what problem you're trying to solve.  By having the
boot --> . symbolic link we have an elegant solution that works for
everybody, and doesn't hurt anybody.  If the user has a separate /boot
partition and doesn't want to have grub point to (hd,x)/boot, then
that's fine.  That user can even delete the symlink.

There was a time when we did not have that symbolic link.  I know that
I got very tired of the subsequent "Hey, my computer won't boot."  "Did
you use a separate /boot partition like it says in the docs?" 
rounds that then occurred several times per week.  So, Daniel Robbins
came up with a transparent solution that works for everybody.

Finally, I would like to clear up a common misconception.  Gentoo Linux
is, indeed, "geared towards Linux power users".  My personal opinion,
though,  is that
it is unrealistic to expect even power users to understand 
everything that goes into a Linux distribution, so saying that Gentoo
is "a distro for people who KNOW what they're doing" seems like
a bit much.  (In fact, many people seem to come to Gentoo precisely
so that they can learn more about Linux without the drudgery required
with installing an LFS distro.)  I prefer to say
that Gentoo Linux is a distro for people who want flexibility.  Anything
we can do to make it easier for the user that does _not_ unduly impact
flexibility is something we should do, and most, if not all, of our
developers instinctively seem to understand that notion.  Of course,
we don't always succeed, but we do try.

The opinions expressed above are, of course, my own.  Daniel Robbins
and the other developers may not agree.

-g2boojum-