> > No, you're right. > > Personally, I've built from both; Stage 3 means you're up and running > much faster. Over time your system will rebuild (especially the next > time you run emerge rsync && emerge --deep --update world). > > Given that your system *will* be rebuilt eventually with all your spiffy > optimizations, if bandwidth isn't a problem you're probably better off > to just bring the huge .iso / stage tarball down and get on with it, > even knowing you will duplicate a fair portion of that download over > time as updates occur. > > On the other hand if bandwidth is a problem, and time isn't, or if > you're building a small tight system (ie a server which doesn't need X > or Office or other such huge beasties) then starting from stage 1 or 2 > will mean you download a lot less of what you don't need - at the cost > of waiting a few days for the system to come up. > > AfC
Andrew, Thanks for the perspective. I appreciate it. One thing that might not apply to many people here today, but I hope will apply to many in the future, is that (like me) many folks are not Linux guru's or IT/sys admin types. I'm just a basic everyday user that is looking for a more stable and better performing experience than the Redhat & SuSE boxes I've built in the past. I still use Windows in my home recording studio because I have to, but most of my day to day stuff is done on Linux now, and has been for about 6-8 months. Mostly the experience has been pretty good. I am attracted to Gentoo because it is a 'managed environment' (my terms) in the sense that it has the portage/emerge system to help me keep things up to date. It's pretty simple to use for a guy like me. Under Redhat I've had a terrible time, not being a sys admin or programmer, building from CVS source myself. Too many library dependencies and things to deal with by hand, and terrible messages I don't understand when it doesn't work. RPMs are a step forward, when you can find them for the right distribution, etc. Keep in mind that folks like me know nothing about the 'right' optimizations to choose on day 1. I just wanted my system to come up, run well, have some apps, and be stable to start with. Gentoo has done that very well. If the system gets faster over time as new revisions of apps come out and get rebuilt with new optimizations, that sounds like a great solution to me. Thanks much, Mark -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
