Experience using Gentoo Linux?

[CudofCow]

I just burned the Gentoo linux livecd's and im planning on installing. I tried last night but there were so many things to do that i got lost. Has anyone had experience installing this operating system and if yes, do you have any helpful tips? Any links to sites that help out newbies?

im running it on the system you see in my sig cept i have a 10gb disk instead of the 120gb one that still has windows xp.


Planning on dual booting with grub if possible. any help?

[theyneverknew]

I've been running Gentoo for about 6 months now, and while the install process is initially intimidating just stick to the installation guide step for step and it should be no problem. Just go to http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...ook.xml?part=1
and print out the entire guide, then follow it step for step :thumb: Dual booting with grub shouldnt be a problem, ive got it working just fine, although not on separate disks. If you run into any other problems just post them here and I'll try to help. :cheers:

Also check out the Gentoo Forums they're an invaluable resource for all things Gentoo : peace2:

[CudofCow]

Thanks i appreciate that so much!

[CudofCow]

Ok i have a few questions.

1. If i use a stage from the CD's can i update it later?

2. What default compile options do i need to configure? the guide says to edit:

the GCC march setting
The GCC O setting
Defining the CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS variables
the MAKEOPTS variable

is this it, and do then even need to be done?

3. What kernel source do i use? The Gentoo guide on their site, uses a vanilla-sources as the example. Is this what i use? should i use gaming-sources instead?

4. What seperate kernel modules do i need to install, and if i miss any can they be installed afterwards instead?

5. What is the USE variable and do i need to do anything to it?



Sorry for sounding like a complete moron, but this isnt the easiest operating system to install and i dont know much about Linux to begin with (hence the reason im installing it...)

Thanks.

[theyneverknew]

Here goes:
1) Yes, when you want to keep everything up to date in the future you just do "emerge -UD world" and all of your packages will be upgraded if possible, meaning once its installed you never need to reinstall gentoo to get updated packages in a new release :thumb:

2)These settings will depend on what cpu the machine has. The file storing these settings is /etc/make.conf This page is a good reference for some decent, safe CFLAGS for a variety of CPU's. (Note: you can just set CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}" after setting your CFLAGS. You don't need to set the MAKEOPTS, the default should be fine.

3)The kernel source that you choose is entirely up to you. However, since you are relatively new to Linux I would suggest starting with vanilla sources and running genkernel as suggested in the Install doc. Once your system is up and running and you have more experience go ahead and compile a new kernel but for now it just complicates things :cheers:

4)Any extra kernel modules depend largely on your specific hardware configuration, however genkernel should get everything you need in order to boot into your new Gentoo install. If you find you are missing something later you just compile the module, or recompile your kernel with it built-in :thumb:

5) USE flags are one of gentoo's greatest strength's. They let you install only what you need on your system. A much more extensive description is here
You could leave the USE flags as default and have a perfectly working system, but I would suggest reading that document and deciding which you need as it will save both compile time and hd space, as well as being able to speed up your system by not loading extraneous programs :D

This may be the longest response I've ever written, hopefully it'll help. Come back if you have any further questions :cheers:

[CudofCow]

Ok, im a little lost here. I get all the way up to part 7.b in the guide where i have to install the source.

i type in:

cdimage usr # emerge vanilla-sources

and i get this thing that comes up saying:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performing Global Updates: /usr/portage/profiles/updates/4Q-2002
(Could take a couple minutes if you have a lot of binary packages.)
.='update pass' *='binary update' @='/var/db move' s='/var/db SLOT move' S='binary SLOT move'
................................Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 14 in ?
import portage
File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage.py", line 6343, in do_upgrade
db["/"]["vartree"].dbapi.move_ent(mysplit)
File "usr/lib/portage/pym/portage.py", line 4017, in move_ent
origmatches=self.match(origcp,use_cache=0)
File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage.py", line 4145, in match
return match_from _list(mydep,self.cp_list(mykey,use_cache=use_cache ))
File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage.py", line 3539, in match_from_list
raise KeyError, "Specific key requires an operator (%s) (try adding an '=')" % (mydep)
KeyError: "Specific key requires an operator (kde-base/arts-1.1.0.3) (try adding an '=')"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is this suppose to mean? did i mess something up? Ahh, this is driving me nuts..its taking forever to get this set up. lol i just wanna play!!!


i am not very good at navigating in this environment so when i get lost i get real lost.

[theyneverknew]

Try doing "emerge sync" then "emerge vanilla-sources". Also, have you chrooted into the new install yet? :cheers:

[CudofCow]

Ok. So i finished installing. I can get Grub to boot up, but when i hit enter on Gentoo Linux 2.4.22 i get an error saying that file does not exist.

I did that emerge sync, then emerge vanilla-sources i am pretty sure i configured everything properly.

that emerge sync takes forever, so i hope i dont have to do it all over again.. Now what?

what should the grub record look like? i did everything word for word in the guide..is my kernel version wrong or something? how can i check its version?


Right now my MBR looks like this

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.22
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.4.22 root=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.4.22

[theyneverknew]

After you did emerge vanilla-sources did you use genkernel to actually compile the kernel? Just doing the emerge only downloads the kernel source code. If you did compile the kernel did you install it to your boot partition? GRUB is not finding the kernel image when it tries to boot.

What is your hd's entire partition structure, and where did you save your kernel and initrd to on your hd? I can tell you exactly what you need to put in your grub.conf if you tell me that :cheers:

[CudofCow]

after i used emerge vanilla-sources (which worked well)

i used the following commands

emerge genkernel
genkernel all

emerge hotplug
rc-update add hotplug default

echo tux > /etc/hostname
echo homenetwork > /etc/dnsdomainname
rc-update add domainname default

nano -w /etc/conf.d/net
(made sure iface_eth0="dhcp")
rc-update add net.eth0 default

emerge --usepkg grub
grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
quit

nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf
-----------------------------------------------------
default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.22
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/kernel-2.4.22 root=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.4.22
-----------------------------------------------------





My hard drive partition structure (or one like it...(this one is bigger, mine is only about 6gb)...looks just like this)

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3876 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 14 105808+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 15 81 506520 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda3 82 3876 28690200 83 Linux

[theyneverknew]

Try changing your grub entry to:

title=Gentoo Linux 2.4.22
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.4.22 root=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.4.22

Also, go into your boot directory and make sure that you have the correct kernel and initrd filenames :cheers:

[CudofCow]

How do i get to the boot directory again from GRUB in order to find out the kernel version? I think thats the problem since i just used the 2.4.22 from the install guide...

[theyneverknew]

You'll need to boot from the livecd, then mount your partitions from there. Then you'll be able to see where you're kernel image is :cheers:

[CudofCow]

Re: Experience using Gentoo Linux?

Its been like a year since i posted this topic..and i still havent gotten Gentoo Linux to run properly. I cant seem to get to the desktop and ive tried countless times. Does anyone have a simple list of commands that i can just type in, one after the other, just to get the thing to run?!! I dont want to tweak the crap out of it, i just wanna see if its any good. Im running an AMD Athlon-XP, Windows XP on the primary HD, and i want to put Gentoo on the second and use Grub to dual boot. I dont want to do any awesome tweaks, i just want it to work. The install process of the linux operating systems gives Windows a good name....It would be nice to have it all self automated. No bull****. Any help would be extremely, greatly, awesomely appriciated.