I understande why you do not explane the use of stages in the handbook, however it should at least be stated that for perposes of a net install Stage3 must be used. It can ge very confusing for new users to figure out what stage to use since they will inherently pick stage1, thinking that is the stage they are on. Not realizing the horror they are creating for themselves. A quick link to other pages explaining the other stages would also be very very helpfull. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open handbook 2. Try to deside what stage to use ;-) 3. Actual Results: Total confusion Expected Results: Provided a simple explenation as to what each stage does. As of this moment no explination is provided for any of the stages
Actually, it's covered in an earlier section, entitled "Choosing The Right Installation Medium" in the subsection labelled "The Gentoo Installation Approaches". Quoting: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=2#doc_chap2 Introduction Gentoo Linux can be installed using one of three stage tarball files. A stage file is a tarball (compressed archive) that contains a minimal environment. * A stage1 file contains nothing more than a compiler, Portage (Gentoo's software management system) and a couple of packages on which the compiler or Portage depends. * A stage2 file contains a so-called bootstrapped system, a minimal environment from which one can start building all other necessary applications that make a Gentoo environment complete. * A stage3 file contains a prebuilt minimal system which is almost fully deployable. It only lacks a few applications where you, the Gentoo user, needs to choose which one you want to install. But indeed, IMHO, this above snippet should be repeated later on just to remind the user. If I get the opportunity, I might submit a patch later. (Or one of the official devs can take this one ... doesn't worry me)
Stages are described at the very beginning of the handbook. There's no point repeating that info. > stated that for perposes of a net install Stage3 must be used Wrong.
