Info on Gentoo Install

T

ToasteD

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 8, 2000
Messages
347
Hey guys, I'm about ready to take the plunge. I got all my docs printed out from gentoo.org so I guess I'm about ready to go. I've used Linux before but I still consider myself a n00b (Experience with RedHat, Slack 8 and recently Fedora). I refuse to start from anywhere but Stage 1, but I'm a little worried that all the time compiling will be spent in vain because I wont know about some setting and mess everything up. I've read over a lot of documentation but does anyone know of a more detailed installation guide (I know the guide on gentoo.org is super n00b-icized :/) or maybe just let me know what I need to know (for certain settings and stuff that is not in the guide)? Thanks
 
That is the best guide I have seen to install it. As long as you fallow all the directions you should be fine.
 
I'd watch it, I've done a stage 2 and stage 3 of gentoo, and they both take an extreme amount of time (for example on a celery 2.2 w/ 256mb ram, it took ~15 hours via stage 3 to get a functioning xfree desktop incl. gnome 2.4)
 
That's why I set up an old comp with a celery 600 and 256 ram with slack so i could at least browse the web and chat while gentoo does its thing
 
You really wont find much better than those install docs and the gentoo forums if you have any problems.

Good luck!

Gentoo is alot of fun.
 
that's just about the best damn documentation you're gonna find. forums.gentoo.org might be alot of help too.
once you've got the system installed, the first thing i always do is emerge xfree. once that builds i usually install a simple light wm and a binary web browser, so i can use the system for basic shit. naim is a great text-based light aim client, firebird/fox is binary, or opera is if you like that more. if you'd rather have something like gaim, be sure to be careful with USE flags so you don't bloat your system (for example i really don't want the entire gnome base installed. but by default, if i'm not mistaken, gaim implies all of gnome :rolleyes: . or maybe it was xmms. but there are weird things like that)
if you've got a few other fast machines you might look into distcc to speed shit up a bit
 
The main thing I would recommend is for you to install gentoolkit (emerge gentoolkit) almost immediately as you will find nearly everyone on the forums and on IRC will direct you to use programs that it provides.

One of the best things to realize is that it is fairly hard to completely bork an install. It is fairly simple to recover from just about any installation snafu after-the-fact.

Good luck!
 
Originally posted by Wolf31o2
The main thing I would recommend is for you to install gentoolkit (emerge gentoolkit) almost immediately as you will find nearly everyone on the forums and on IRC will direct you to use programs that it provides.

One of the best things to realize is that it is fairly hard to completely bork an install. It is fairly simple to recover from just about any installation snafu after-the-fact.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Yeah, gentoolkit is great. I was doing some "house cleaning" the other day and I can't count how many times I used qpkg and revdep-rebuild. I'm also a fan of genlop.

One problem I am having with revdep-rebuild is that everytime I run it it wants to reinstall OO-1.1.0-bin. I let it but the next time revdep-rebuild gets run it wants to reinstall again.

Other than that little glitch, the gentoolkit and other packages (like genlop) are invaluable for maintaining a clean system.
 
Well, I installed Gentoo from stage1 and it works! I compiled the 2.6.3 Gentoo-Enhanced kernel into the system.

I have also compiled X (XFree) 4.3, KDE 3.2, Mozilla FireFox .8, and some others.

Man, this was an extremely cool experience!
 
Originally posted by strumbum
Well, I installed Gentoo from stage1 and it works! I compiled the 2.6.3 Gentoo-Enhanced kernel into the system.

I have also compiled X (XFree) 4.3, KDE 3.2, Mozilla FireFox .8, and some others.

Man, this was an extremely cool experience!
Click to expand...

Congrats! That is great news. Gentoo has been known to turn off new users on occasion with its install. You are going to love it. Once you use portage a few times, you will never want to switch.
 
It is mentioned by both advanced users and developers on the gentoo forums that doing a stage1 install is almost pointless, only in rare cases and testing environments would you want to. Is there a particular reason you are wanting to start from stage1? If not, you may consider stage2. Which is when the system is really put together, and much of stage1 is overwiritten and reconfigured.

I am also a stage2 man myself with any box i install gentoo on. I have gone through a stage1 install before but that was only because I wanted the experience. If you are going to do it though, you wont find any better docs then those you already got at gentoo. Gentoo is an AMAZINGLY well documented distro, and the forums + IRC channel are the best fall backs for questions I have ever seen.

good luck

EDIT: Oops just noticed you got it up and running,ongrats and welcome to gentoo :)
 
i did a stage1 just cause i was curious how it worked, but that was my second build. since then, stage3 is all i've ever done. i couldn't ever notice speed differences between stage1 and 3, and there's not really any advantage (imo) of spending the extra stage1 time.
 
Originally posted by MTB2Live,Live4Comps
i did a stage1 just cause i was curious how it worked, but that was my second build. since then, stage3 is all i've ever done. i couldn't ever notice speed differences between stage1 and 3, and there's not really any advantage (imo) of spending the extra stage1 time.
Click to expand...

I wonder, if you rebuild everything later, does it even matter what install you use?

(Throw in the basics, and make world on an already working system is my usual strategy.)
 
nope installing from a stage 3 then later running emerge -eD world later will end up the same as starting from stage 2 (already bootstrapped)
 
Personally, I use stage1 on every system that I build *for myself* simply because I use WAY too much customization. I end up spending more time cleaning up after a stage3 than I do compiling from stage1 (on dual Opteron). As far as other machines, I usually use a GRP install, as it is WAY faster for getting a machine up. After the first "emerge sync && emerge -vuUD world" most of the system is recompiled anyway. At least when I use a 1.4 GRP set that is true.

Anyway, welcome to Gentoo...

Now it's time for you to go play some games and keep me employed... ;p
 
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