It's annoying to have problems on a system just because you've done something really stupid like `emerge unmerge gcc'. It would be nice to gently suggest to users that, at some early stage, they build binary packages for important things. I don't know how they would go about doing this for different stages, for stage1 I would guess they emerge -b *everything* up to the level of "system", for stage3 it would probably mean doing emerge -eb system instead of emerge -u system (at the appropriate place). Of course, building these binary packages takes time, and they take up disk space. I have no idea *how* much disk space this is, and I can't check because my system is ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" with some binary-size-altering CFLAGS. I'm sure it would be a cinch to find some random person embarking on a new gentoo installation to find this information from. If advice to build binary packages is put in the install doc, it would have to be made clear to the user what these costs are. I'm just submitting this suggestion for sanity checking. My English skills (as must be blatantly obvious here) are not up to the task, so I'm not going to offer direct assistance, just an idea. I hope it makes sense.
oops, accidentally put component to be alsa guide :| And forgot my carriage returns. *bashes own head in*
Even though this trick can be of use for some people, I will not put it in the installation instructions. Users that want to quickly "reinstall" should use GRP packages (in which case they can just do "emerge --usepkgonly gcc" to get on their feet again). The diskspace required to build packages is also rather big and if I would add this trick, I would have to add a dozen other tricks too. The installation instructions are meant to guide the user through the installation process, even new users. If we were to inform them about all possible tips & tricks, they might even get scared and run off.
