On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 14:47 +0000, Kurt Lieber wrote: > We have received *numerous* complaints from users about the decision to > remove stage 1 and 2 from the installation documentation. I realize it's > still available if users are willing to dig for it, but not all users do. > > In my years of monitoring [EMAIL PROTECTED], we've received the most > complaints about this decision than any other single decision. Is there a > way we can re-introduce the stages into the installation documentation, > perhaps with gigantic warnings saying, "for advanced users only" or "use at > your own risk"?
The problem is that we (releng) cannot possibly keep up with the number of possible bugs that are being introduced via USE flags. It used to be that if someone introduced a USE flag into *any* package that would show up under "system" that they would make sure the damn thing would pass a stage1->stage3 process. Now, we're receiving bugs and emails quite often from problems where things like "hal" are being pulled in to system, which is a major problem, as it requires a configured kernel, which, of course, doesn't exist at this point. As I am now not only the Release Engineering lead, but also the x86 Release Coordinator, I am fielding nearly 100% of these issues. I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME TO DO OTHER PEOPLE'S QA FOR THEM. Because of this, *I* requested to have the instructions removed. They were causing more problems than they are worth, and since *not a single person* stepped up when I asked for help after beejay left, I'm just going to do what I need to do with the things that I maintain. If this means requesting Handbook changes to reduce my workload, I have and will continue this trend. Personally, I would like to see stage1 and stage2 go away completely. They serve no real purpose anymore after the changes we have made to the stages to include a complete /var/db before 2005.0's release. They take longer to use for installation, and give you exactly 0 advantages over a stage3 that cannot be done with a stage3 tarball itself. I would have no problem with us documenting these more advanced methods somewhere, but I would have a definite problem with resurrecting the obsolete materials just because a few users that are ignorant to the actual issues are flaming and otherwise provoking [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this. Besides, there's *nothing* stopping a user from continuing to use a stage1 tarball. There's *nothing* stopping a user from taking a stage3 tarball, the example catalyst specs, and building their own stage1 tarball. We aren't taking away their "freedom" in any way. However, anything that we release, we *are* expected to do QA on and make sure it works, along with resolving bugs. Almost all of these bugs are user-created due to their lack of knowledge of USE flags, Gentoo in general, and the bootstrap process. We cannot expect every user that might think about using a stage1 tarball to know this. That means they'll be filing bugs. I'll be getting them. I came up with a resolution for these bugs and enacted it. While it will not prevent the problem 100%, it will reduce my workload greatly. I truly do appreciate and adore our users, but if a few people are going to get pissed off and leave over this. Fine. Let them. They're probably not the kind of people we want associated with us anyway. > ----- Forwarded message from Varun Dhussa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- > > Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:50:07 +0530 > From: Varun Dhussa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Complaint > > Hello, > > Gentoo claims to be giving freedom. However, I was dissapointed to see that > the stage 1 had been removed from gentoo 2005. Infact, even the handbook > makes no refference of it. This takes Gentoo another step closer to other > distros like Ubuntu. > > A dissapointed user, > Varun Dhussa > India > > ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering - Strategic Lead x86 Architecture Team Games - Developer Gentoo Linux
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