[Sussex] gentoo - pre-install questions

[John D.]

Hi list,

I'm trying to be more methodical (unlike me, I usually go charging in, where 
angels fear to tread, then wonder why I've made another "balls up" !). Hence, 
I'm going through the "Handbook" and hop to clarify any stuff that I don't 
follow!

When it comes to re-install, I wanted to keep the same partitions etc 
i.e. /boot, /swap, /root and /home.

So I proceed to work my way through the handbook until I get to the 
filesystems/blockdevices section, when it comes to mounting partitions etc, 
do I need to mount the /home partition as well as the /boot, /swap 
and /root ???

Then I can get on with the next bit OK, but when it's time to "Configure 
Compile Options", and I have to put the USE (or is it cflags - the bit where 
I put in the little name/word listings, which would be USE flags further into 
learning the system, I just don't follow if the name is the same when I'm 
putting them into the make.conf at this early stage of install), do I put in 
all the ones that I think I'll need? In fact as I don't know too much about 
all this and I'll be taking "the easy way out" with a stage 3 +GRP install, 
using genkernel (yes I've managed to pick up a small bit of knowledge about 
kernels and stuff, I just don't think I know enough to do that manually) do 
the USE flags etc etc make any difference in the make.conf if I'm using 
genkernel ???

Oh yeah, that's what I've been meaning to ask, Whats the difference between 
hostname/domainname and nisdomainname ??? So I know what the system and/or 
machine is going to be called??

Sorry if my questions seem to be jumping a bit backwards and forwards (that's 
how I think of them in the first place - and I've got a memory like a 
sieve!), so,FSTAB's. When writing my fstab, I know that I need to include 
the /boot, /swap and /root, I suspect that I must also have an entry for 
my /home, but that's why I put the question in above about mounting my /home 
when doing the filesystems/block devices part of the install i.e. should I 
have already mounted the /home ? or does it automatically mount when I've put 
the entry for it in the /etc/fstab ???

The point of that, being that I would like to make sure that when I'm logging 
in as user, I'm logging into the user account at the /home partition as 
opposed to a /home directory in the /root partition ??

regards

John D.