On Saturday 12 January 2008, Qian Qiao wrote: > > I mean dealing with Gentoo components versions sounds sensible.... > > watching GRML/Knoppix/whatever website for a Gentoo > > install...surely less. > > As I said in the thread earlier, do not bind your mind to the idea > that "you need gentoo to install gentoo", the fact is, you don't. The > installation steps from knoppixCD/GRML is almost identical to those > from a Gentoo CD, with only one exception: they don't come with > /mnt/gentoo, so you'll have to mkdir /mnt/gentoo, but if that makes > it less sensible as you claimed, I'm afraid I can't agree.
Without trying to be a complete dick here, I think Gavelsky has not yet 100% comprehended the essential difference between Gentoo and binary distros: Gentoo is NOT "plug in and go", it is a complex scheme that allows you to build other distros. It is not suitable for newbies (disregard the occasional newbie that does get it right, that's a minority and very atypical), and one really does have to have moved beyond the "Oh, look! Shiny installer!" mentality to appreciate it. When you get to that stage, you appreciate that you need a bootstrap system to build the first stages of your own distro, and you can get that bootstrap system from any place you feel like getting it from. Anybody that feels they *need* or *must have* an official Gentoo installer is probably the wrong target market and should be referred to other distros that will suit their needs better. This is not a troll or an elitist statement, it's just recognizing what gentoo is and what it isn't - it's not a distro suitable for someone to whom chroot isn't yet second nature. I could give a traditional car analogy with kit cars, but I think I'm into dead horse territory already alan -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
