In codelisting 6.14 /dev/hda3 is initialized using mkreiserfs. In codelisting 15.1 /dev/ROOT is referenced as ext3. As those two partitions are the same in the example of the installation guide, this may lead to confusion. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. goto http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml 2. look at the codelistings
The guide gives serveral examples (ext2,3, reiserfs, and so on) as you can see, 6.14 is only an example. In 6.17 we made it ext3. So I don't think it's required.
6.17 is only "for your reference" the official example is IMHO 6.14 which uses reiserfs. but if you think, that this is the way it should be, it's fine with me. just thought I would let you know about this small inconsistence.
We will do our best to have the new yet-to-come document as consistent as possible, but with a distribution built around choices this isn't easy. It is therefor far more important to teach the user that everything is based around choices and therefor every codelisting is an example. The current installation guide contains several of these pointers, but sadly enough it uses lots of colours for that. The reason is that the installation guide grew from a 2-page command-listing to the current 22-pages installation document. A restructure was therefor necessary - hence the development of the Gentoo Handbook with a part on "Installing Gentoo". However, this handbook in itself will also contain inconsistenties of this sort; it is inevitable, especially when you're looking at a document that explains installing Gentoo for several architectures, options, stages, filesystems and storage (such as LVM -- EVMS will too in the future). For this particular problem, not all architectures support reiserfs, so focusing on a single filesystem would be *very* bad for the user's system.
I think the main argument for not using multiple fs' (ext2, reiser) is to reduce potential confusion. People that know what they are doing don't need "different" examples, but those that are new to linux may be confused by it. As indicated by this post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=99265
I understand that inconsistency is inevitabel. Still I think that it is not necessary. If somebody who is absolutly new to linux, or just new to no fully automated installation, he could get confused by examples. Especially since there is one example of an installation that is followed very closely throughout the document. I just figured, after reading that forum thread, that somebody who would install gentoo for the first time would possibly get confused. But ofcourse I understand that consistency is near to impossible with a guide for gentoo, the distro of choices. Still it should be the goal of any document.
As previously stated, we will try to use a "default" for everything in the upcoming handbook (all partitions ext3 as it is supported by all architectures, same partitioning with little deviation in between architectures, same kernel naming etc.). So it is a goal, just not of the current installation guide.
My apologies; I just reread the guide, and the other commands are indeed clearly defined for reference purpose.
Created attachment 19761 [details, diff] Patch to example fstab Benny, sorry I told you to mark it as wontfix, my initial impressions where wrong. Attached is a patch to the gentoo installation guide fstab using reiserfs instead of ext3. if a docdev can review I'd appreciate it.
thanks for rereading the guide and writing the patch.
no problem, thanks to Hartwig's suggestion to improve the guide. Patch reviewed.
Committed.
