Ixthusdan Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 I have set up my computer like this: hda has two partitions, one 10G with xp and one 10G as a fat32 share. hdb has Mandrake with /root, swap, /home, and /usr partitions, all totaling 20G. I have a remaining 20G of unpartitioned space that I want to use for fun and games, like gentoo! None of the howto's are like this scenereo. They assume that I want to wipe the drive. I did find one that explained loading gentoo from within a working linux system, which I thought would fit, and a dual-boot windows thing. But I have lilo working fine, Iknow how to add gentoo to lilo, and just need to build gentoo into the unpartitioned area. However, I have rebuilt the system from scratch recently (3 weeks ago) and I would prefer a more sane approach, that is, one that preserves what I already have!. I downloaded and burned the liveCD, but stopped to ask here. Any suggestions on how to best proceed?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Hi Ixthusdan Welcome in the Gentoo family... well not yet but almost :wink: Ok you burned the livecd. Did you read the howto to install the distro? Here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml You have a 20gig remaining at the end of hdb right? At STEP 6, create a new / partition in that free space and at STEP 7 mount that / partition as well as the Mandrake swap partition and continue the installation from there (ie, chroot into the newly mounted / parition and so on). I'm sure it will work... MOttS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Thanks, MottS I started the liveCD, and my network was working fine. When the step 6 started, that's when I stopped. (Call me chicken!) I had printed out the 24 pages of the installation instructions, and I also had looked at the Gentoo forum to see if anyone else had done a similar configuration. Now, my final internal debate is whether to go without my machine for however long it takes to bootstrap-- but I guess that's why I'm doing it!! I have other computers in the house, but this is mine. :lol: The internet is just better on my machine!! :mystismiles: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Well, the best thing to do is to start the bootstrap and go sleep. Tomorrow morning it will be done for sure. Then, start the 'emerge system' step (stage 2) and go to work. When you'll come it will be done. Tomorow night you'll have to compile your own kernel, tweak the thing a bit (/etc/...) and compile a desktop environment (if you need one :wink:). Then go to bed. Two days later everything will be over without to much pain .. hehe. This is how I got it to compile from stage 1 :lol: . Then, an 'emerge rsync && emerge world' once in a while to keep you system up to date. Gentoo is pretty easy you'll see :P Good luck man! MOtts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 simply create new partitions in the free space, and mount these as described in the install instructions. make sure you know the exact /dev/hdx# that you are using for what. since you already have lilo installed, just ignore that step and once the kernel is copied to /boot (this file should be bzImage) reboot into the Mandrake system and add Gentoo to lilo.conf there (or use the MCC thing, although this may look for /boot/vmlinux instead of /boot/bzImage-make sure it's looking for the right file, that is. and also make sure you remember which /dev/hdx# holds the /boot partition. if you have any questions i'm sure there are more than enough gentoo-ee's here to help out :) (i'm currently rolling back to gnome 2.2.x after a short stint with 2.3.2-i didn't like it much-but it's devel, who can complain). although while that's being done i'm sort of getting attached to KDE w/slicker... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 Ok, I used fdisk to make the new partition, just /, and then I rebooted to make sure everything was there, which it was. I used Mandrake to format the new partition (RieserFS, because I like it!) and then had a question. Tyme, you say partitions, but MottS, you say partition, so do I need a boot partition fot the gentoo install, but not make it bootable?? I have a swap already, and I made the root, do I need the boot? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 no, not necessarily. you can just have one large root partition, you'll just have to modify the install directions to your setup (you have to do this anyways). i usually have a seperate boot partition that isn't mounted when the system is up and running. it's suggested that you do it that way in the gentoo setup, but it's not a necessity. more of a safety measure-keeps it from getting written to accidentally or getting corrupted (in some cases). in the end, do the configuration the way that is easiest for you. it's more important to get through the setup of gentoo and understand how it works-it took my two tries because i lost patience the first time around. but now i love gentoo :wub: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted May 28, 2003 Report Share Posted May 28, 2003 :wub: he he :-) ... I need a spare machine so I can rebuild my FW, and Webserver witrh Gentoo ... I love it !!! although had a bad exp this week :-( vmware (with winXP) crashed ... and put bad stuff on my Filesystem ... and reiserfs could not full recover. however this is gentoo we are talking about, and it wasn't too hard to fix 1. boot from livecd 2. mount / and /home (/ had the bad fs and mount /home to /home2) 3. mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home2/root-backup 4. cp -ax / /mnt/gentoo/home2/root-backup (copied everything except the bad files) 5. remake the / fs (mkreiserfs /dev/hda5) 6. cp -a /mnt/gentoo/home2/root-backup /mnt/gentoo 7 reboot 8-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2003 1:21 AM local time, and I am emerging my system! I will start compiling my kernel before going to work. So far, so good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted May 29, 2003 Report Share Posted May 29, 2003 woo hoo - one more in the gentoo family! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 Well, I need to know more!! I compiled the kernel 5 times before I did it right, and three times before I got one that would boot. How long does it take to emerge kde???? So, far, 9 hours and I have 10 more packages to go!! I think it is taking longer than bootstrap or emerging the system!!! Notes to make so far: I came from windex about 2 years ago, and have tried several distros but have used Mandrake 95% of the time. After working with gentoo for a few days, I have learned more than 2 years with Mandrake! It is not a complaint. Some have argued that Mandrake was not ready for the switch, but clearly it is gui enough to keep people blissfully ignorant of what the system is really doing. I know it will take time to figure out an x config file, but I guess I'll learn when I do it. By the way, my box boots in a third of the time it takes Mandrake to boot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted June 1, 2003 Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 the 3 biggies that take ages to compile are .. kde, open office, mozilla kde took me about 10 hours IIRC, on my dual p3 with 1gig ram open office :-( start OO before bed ... coz its not fun watching it ... and it takes hours Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted June 1, 2003 Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 For OO, you can emerge a pre-compiled package if you want. emerge /usr/portage/app-office/openoffice-bin/openoffice-bin-1.1_beta.ebuild Motts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 Nvidia will not emege beacuse it says I need to compile mtrr's into the kernel. So, I did that. It didn't work, and so I checked everything in that section and recompiled again. Still no go. What am I missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted June 1, 2003 Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 i never emerge the NVIDIA drivers for gentoo, i just downloaded the script from NVIDIA's website...it worked fine :) (it will build the drivers) however, i did have to remember to add nvidia to /etc/modules.conf otherwise it wouldn't work :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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