Stage 3 no use flags until kernel sources retrieved?

[Geshtar]

So I am installing gentoo on and following the guide closely, I got the 'emerge gentoo-sources' part and it tried to emerge dozens of packages before getting the kernel sources. When it hit a package that needed the kernel sources it of course failed. I managed to solve the problem by a fluke, seeing someone's post on a tangent in a thread concerning the removal of stage 1&2. I removed the use flags from make.conf and this time it got the sources correctly. Why does the guide tell you to set use flags before getting the sources if it causes emerges to fail? Or am I just missing something? I also had to update my portage after I did the emerge --sync part, so maybe that has some hand in this, but I kinda doubt it since that other post clued me into a solution that seems unrelated....

Thanks for any info.
_________________
-Geshtar
(~_~)

[dearborn98]

I've found that when you are installing the base system, it's best to set your use flags as:

USE="nptl"

After your base system is installed, then you can set your "use flags" as needed.

[Ma3oxuct]

He is not re-building the base system. Setting nptl can be very dangerous if the user does not comprehend how to rebuild the toolkit with the default 3.3* gcc (I am assuming that is an x86 system). Setting the nptl use flag if you do not know exactly what you are doing may result in a broken system (and will result in a broken system if ~x86 is applied in addition).

What useflags did you set, Geshtar? I think that if you set particular ones, it could be causing a bug i.e. a bug in the documention, which in this case, it should tell the user not to set certain flags.

[Geshtar]

I had a whole bunch, mostly usability stuff, X, kde, gtk, gtk2, qt, java, alsa, a bunch of codec/mutlimedia related flags, a postgres flag, apache2......The computer is off right now and still not fully functional so copying the list is not possible. It is an x86 system.

The emerge died on svgalibs needing the kernel sources if memory serves me right.

I didn't try to isolate the behavior since I was trying to do the install in a reasonable amount of time, so I just removed all the use flags at once. Before I removed the use flags, emerge thought it needed 70 packages to get gentoo-sources, and the last one it was going to get was the actual gentoo-sources. Once I got rid of the use flags, emerging gentoo-sources only pulled in the actual sources. I personally think it might be the documentation was not fully updated with the removal of stage1 & 2 (which is how I have done my previous two installs). The post that I mentioned implied very loosely that that with stage 1 and 2 installs you could declare use flags before getting the sources, while with stage 3 sources you had to put them in afterwards. I don't know if that is true or not, but it seems to be at a glance...

On an aside, what does nptl do? I don't think I've come across that one before....
_________________
-Geshtar
(~_~)

[Ma3oxuct]

nptl tells the package glibc (the main c libraries) to compile support for NPTL (Native POSIC Threading Library). NPTL is a new replacement for the traditional Linux Threads. NPTL makes everything on your system much much faster (I do not know exactly what they changed in nptl to cause this, but they changed something). You can only use nptl, as far as I know, on gcc (the c compiler) 3.4 or above.

I attempted to look at kernel-sources ebuilds to see if any dependencies were set. I could not find anything appearant. If I had the time, I would do some extensive testing concerning this issue and file a good bug report. If you wish to do the testing, put all use flags in, then take them out one-by-one, so see which one is causing the kernel to require another package.

Actaully I just recalled one very important thing.