Peep Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 I decided to give gentoo a spin on a spare hard drive. Everyone talks about how long it takes to compile everything, but the problem I'm having is that it is taking forever to download ! (i'm now getting less than 1K/s from oregonstate.edu.) there are mirrors listed on the gentoo.org page, but is there a way to use these during install? or should I just wait it out? :) (i haven't been able to find this on gentoo's page, although their documentation is generally very thorough) thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 there used to be a way back in 1.4_rc2, but it was broken. it was a program you ran to select a mirror, but in rc2 it would cause major issues and pretty much kill the install (it filled make.conf with garbage for some reason). there is no mention of this tool in the rc4 documentation. i hope they bring it back for 1.4 final! so, at this point I don't know how to change mirrors, i wish I did, i just got done installing gentoo about 10 minutes ago and am now working on building the system (installing gnome right now). did you search the gentoo forums at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qnr Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 I can't answer, but just some words of encouragement. Sourcemage searches for the fastest mirror when downloading using netselect, so I'm sure the option (or something similar) is also available in your Gentoo configuration. Edit: Or maybe not at the moment, considering tyme's post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 ah ha! a little search on gentoo forums turned up this option: For anyone else referencing this thread you can insert mirrors in /etc/make.conf. Here's an example that would have worked well for Finnish: <!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteEBegin-->GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://sunsite.dk/mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://gentoo.linux.no/pub/gentoo " (for reference: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=203955#203955) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peep Posted April 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 ahh. i searched those boards, but i guess i was focusing on keywords like "install" when i shouldn't have. i posted my Q here because i knew people were pretty newbie-friendly, i'm never sure on other boards. :P i'll play with this later. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 you're asking the question gave me a reason to find an answer (i search for "mirror select" or something like that), and I had been wondering too because I wanted to switch mirrors, so it worked out :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted April 29, 2003 Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 I'm using ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/ . This is really fast. And yes you have to put it in /etc/make.conf as tyme said :-) You guys are Gentoo geeks now :P MOtts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peep Posted April 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 29, 2003 ok, so if it's still cranking away at a ridiculously slow speed... is there a safe way to interrupt the download and start over (changing the server as discussed above?) I did a # emerge sys-kernel/gentoo-sources hours ago and it's now downloading at 800B/second. this could take forever. i thought if i unplugged the ethernet cable, maybe the installer would try another server, but that didn't seem to work. if i kill the process, will that screw up my whole install and i'll have to fdisk and start over? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted April 30, 2003 Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 Kill the download by pressing CTRL+C. Now changes your server in /etc/make.conf and retype the command. It's going to resume the download. Smart isn't it? MOttS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peep Posted April 30, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 thanks 8) i was hesitant to kill the download, but it worked just fine. and this way it'll be done downloading before the end of the week (actually, it'll be done in about 10 minutes!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted April 30, 2003 Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 So you are at the kernel. Notice that gentoo-sources-2.4.20-r2 does not include a frame buffer support. In other word, you'll get plain text when you'll boot the machine. If you want images support, emerge /usr/portage/media-gfx/bootsplash/bootsplash-0.6.ebuild and patch the kernel with the patch at /usr/share/bootsplash before compiling it. Read the ebuild for more details (/usr/portage/media-gfx/bootsplash/bootsplash-0.6.ebuild) Motts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peep Posted April 30, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 thanks for the heads-up. that's my first time patching a kernel (or compiling one, for that matter) but i think i've got it working. and if i find out when i reboot that i've messed it up somewhere along the line, i'll just try again until it actually works :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 30, 2003 Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 I'm using ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/ . This is really fast. And yes you have to put it in /etc/make.conf as tyme said :-) You guys are Gentoo geeks now :P MOtts Mandrake geeks are better. Were so hard core we have to deal with dependency hell while recompiling the whole system. You gentoo geeks have it to easy I wonder what that makes tyme then :?: A Gendrake geek :?: A Mandentoo geek :?: A Mantoo geek :?: who knows Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted April 30, 2003 Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 I wonder what that makes tyme then :?: no sign of mandrake left on my system...all gentoo now...bwahahaha! MottS: got any tips on improving fonts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted April 30, 2003 Report Share Posted April 30, 2003 here's another cool little hint that perhaps you haven't thought of have you noticed the files in /usr/portage/distfiles ??? how about making an NFS export of the directory .. and sharing it with the other computers in your network. now whenever you emerge -u world (or whatever) the files are stored in one place for your entire network, and you will only have to download them once 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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