Some thoughts: I recently did a stage 1 install and found that the process seems to have deteriorated to the point it was more work than it should have been - hence I see some of the reasons for abandoning it. In particular, the recompiling needed to bring it to a GCC 3.4.4 with all the options I needed meant that a stage 1 gained me nothing, and I lost quite a bit of time.
The majority of systems I have recently installed have been tar over ssh from a running system (usually a LiveCD - I have P3/P4 and athlon - just choose the appropriate base). A small install can be up and running in less than 30 mins (IF you already have a running system!) - and its mostly preconfigured which is where I find I spend most of *MY* time. Only downside I have come across is cruft, but that can be managed. I consider this as the equivalent of a targeted (for my purposes) customised super stage3 install. With todays large hard disks, I also put aside a 4G reiserfs partition that contains a minimal install (inc a tailess /boot) to keep me working (i.e., the gateway has a basic webserver, squid, nat setup, mail server, ..., the desktop has fluxbox, OO and evolution - my main work tools and so on. Maintenance is done in a chroot, with an occasional test when scheduled with major kernel upgrades. If in fiddling, I have a disaster, I can keep working while rebuilding. If more than one physical HD is present, grub is installed in each MBR - many modern MB's allow you to choose which HD to boot from - quite handy! Worst comes to worst, a few minutes with tar and I have a basic, but fully configured base to start the recovery process back to the original system. I have found the 4G partition very handy when the raid array broke (disk failure - the 4G was in an unaffected area of the disk - non-raided, so was easily rescued), software problems (bad kernel upgrades) and just having the peace of mind that I can keep working through most disasters. I would highly recommend that this be a standard part of the install for critical systems (e.g., SOHO gateways), and especially for those who have only a single system to work with. With a little planning, it is possible to have an install once, and multiply/upgrade forever maintenance process - this is one of gentoo's current strengths. BillK On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 01:40 +0100, Holly Bostick wrote: > George Garvey schreef: > > On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 04:17:45PM +0100, Holly Bostick wrote: > > > >> reinstall, again I must wonder why he would complain that such a -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
