When walking through the 2004.3 Handbook, the user is never told to perform an 'emerge system' which will cause the install to fail. This instruction (based on the "standard" (?) handbook) should be at the end of chapter 6 (right before configuring the kernel) What makes this worse is that this is the install instruction set that new users will refer to (particularly if they just downloaded the 2004.3 iso), rather than the quickinstall, etc.... Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Follow the 2004.3 Handbook 2. 3. Actual Results: The install was completely b0rked. User received errors that autoconf was not available during compilation of other packages. When you tried to emerge autoconf, you needed automake, which needed autoconf, ad nausea...... User ended up completely wiping partitions and starting over. This command is listed in the "regular" handbook (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=6#doc_chap2) and in the quickinstall (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-quickinstall.xml).
Did you perhaps use a stage2 file? The 2004.3 x86 handbook, like all other 2004.3 handbooks, assume the use of a stage3 file. For stage1/2 you must follow the current instructions (which require a working internet connection).
Marking as invalid; emerge system is not recommended for a networkless installation.