Gentoo info needed


Recommended Posts

Well I covered all the angles and made sure there wasn't anything holding me back to XP. Of course I backed up all the important files I had so, yeah, I covered all the angles. As some of you know, I'm not a total stranger to Linux but I'm not an expert either, sorta like walking on the line between newbie and intermediate. The only Linux distro I've used up to date are Redhat 8 and 9 so you can sorta I don't have a wide view of the other distros. I've only heard good things about Linux so I have a few questions before I get started (downloading the ISO first):

1: How long will it take for me to get my machine up from Stage 1 tarball on a P4 2.4GHz, 1.5GB RAM machine?

2: Which ISO/file should I download for Stage 1? I went to the "University of California, Santa Barbara (USA/ftp)" but there were two folders at the "Stages" folder: P4 and x86. The P4 folder contains a stage 2 tarball (I'm assuming it has been optimized for Pentium 4 proc) and the x86 folder contains the Stage 1 tarball (I guess for your super-duper-personalized optimizing). If not the Stages folder, I went to LiveCD. Which one should I download for Stage 1 tarball: x86 CD1 (at around 512MB) or Basic (at around 97MB)?

I hope I tried to explain myself but in any case, it's better if you went to the site yourself and follow along (I think I might have lost you). Whatever download it is, I do hope this will be the last time in a long time I switch to Linux. :)

http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml - Go to the "University of California, Santa Barbara (USA/ftp)" link.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are no different versions of a stage 1 tarball, because you compile literally everything yourself... so get the basic ISO (the really small one). It should take a couple of days to get it fully up and running, depending on wether you're going to sit and watch it and start each step straight after the previous one, or if you just set it doing something then go off to work for example.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the Basic (97MB) then? I really don't care how long it takes 'cuz I got exams next week so I'll be studying the whole time.

EDIT: There seems to be a lot of hassle for creating partitions and stuff for Gentoo, can't I just set it up in Partition Magic?

Edited by Panorama
Link to comment
Share on other sites

you CAN create the partitions in PM, but if you're using the instructions for the gentoo install, the partitioning is a bit blended in with other important steps. I suggest just doing it all in the install. WOuld make things simpler.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are no different versions of a stage 1 tarball, because you compile literally everything yourself... so get the basic ISO (the really small one). It should take a couple of days to get it fully up and running, depending on wether you're going to sit and watch it and start each step straight after the previous one, or if you just set it doing something then go off to work for example.

Not like you couldn't really have it set to do multiple steps at once, just use && between things if it's a non-emerge thing or emerge supports multiple names at once. So you could do "emerge kde gnome" and have it run for a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ive done 5 gentoo installs in teh past 3 days

the partitioning is a breeze

fdisk /dev/hda

d

1

d

2

d

p

n

p

1

<enter>

+64M

n

p

2

<enter>

+512M

n

p

3

<enter>

<enter>

t

2

82

a

1

w

mke2fs -j /dev/hda1

mkswap /dev/hda2

mkreiserfs /dev/hda3

will set u up like this

/dev/hda1     64MB    ext3
/dev/hda2     512MB     swap
/dev/hda3     THEREST        reiserfs

easy :p

umm, the bootstrapping (STAGE1) takes about a quater of a day - half a day

you will also need to download the stage tarball, and the source code, and then emerge system

so ud do a

cd /mnt/gentoo

tar -xvjpf stage1*

cd /usr/portage

scripts/bootstrap -f

scripts/bootstrap

emerge system

all of that takes between half a day and 3/4s of a day (i left it running over nite so i dont know)

then u need to get kernel

emerge gentoo-dev-sources

if you want to manually compile (i did, its easier and better and faster and less hassling in the later stages) then u dont need this next step

however if u want it done automatically then

emerge genkernel

genkernel all

then some other small stuff that takes about 20 mins for all of it

then comes the excessivly long compilation period

emerge xfree gnome kde

that takes about hmm, 2 -3 days on my athlon xp 2000+

but after that, u have gui, all teh rest of emerging is background, u dont notice it :D

one hint tho

if you still have a reminant redhat system make a backup of

/etc/X11/XF86Config

coz in gentoo, u need to make that urself (or some of it), but in redhat, monitor rates and keyboard settings and stuff are all auto detected

then when u install gentoo u put the backup in teh /etc/X11 dir

hope it all goes well, gentoo is AWESOME

ohe yeh, one problem i had was with genkernel

it failed every time i tried it, which is why i manually configured/compiled the kernel

so i dont suggest doing the genkernel method :D

EDIT: dont follow this, use the manual, it is 10:30 at nite, and that was all off the back of my hand, no manual, wow, i am a geek, i can do a texted based install of a linux operating system including manually configureing and compiling the kernel without the manual now :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I know it has been a while but alas, I got Gentoo working for me. Had problems with it before (installed three times before) but its working now. Ok, so I have a few things I need to fix, important stuff first:

1 - My keyboard is screwed up Its on French mode or something, so a slash will appear as ? and all other marks (quotations and stuff) are like ^???? etc... So youll notice that I dont have proper spelli2 - GDM doesnt pop up at boott Instead some other old school fashion logon appears (I think xdm). I did everything properly, DISPLAYMANAGER=gdm (quote marks are there but the keyboard makes it as something else) and XSESSION=Gnome (again the quote marks are ther3 - Anti-Aliasing not working on all web pagess Ive got the Firebird with GTk2 and XFT whatever version and not all sites have an anti-aliasing. On some there is and some there are none. On Neowin, the text are anti-aliased but when Im posting, the text Im writing is all pixelated, if thats the right te4 - Running emerged apps, lets say gifToxicc I just emerged gifT and gifToxic but how do I run it(insert question mark he5 - Got an iPod and need something to transfer songs to hard drivee I know theres gtkpod so thats covered. How do I transfer my songs from my iPod to my hard drive though(question mark) I have all my songs on my iPod but I need to bring it to my hard drive, does anyone know of a program that can do this(question mark)

Well so far Gentoo has been pretty smooth except I wanna get those 5 problems fixed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bah! Use Slackware instead if you want a hardcore system. Doesn't even take an hour to install on a 650 MHz P3.

Slackware is not THAT hardcore. Not hardcore to the point it provides a portage system similar to the one of BSD.

Time here is not the critical thing, you could start at a later stage. What people want when downloading gentoo would be the uber optimisations, not necessarily being "hardcore".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 - Got an iPod and need something to transfer songs to hard drive I know theres gtkpod so thats covered. How do I transfer my songs from my iPod to my hard drive though(question mark) I have all my songs on my iPod but I need to bring it to my hard drive, does anyone know of a program that can do this(question mark)

Depending on what format is your iPod... actually, I don't know for FAT iPods, but on HFS+ ones, like mine for instance, you can do a little "ls -la" in it after mounting the drive and discover a hidden folder containing the MP3s. They will be somewhat strangely organized tho. I really should write a perl script to do this, it would be useful for both Linux and OS X.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My iPod was formatted on Windows so Im pretty sure its FAT or something.

EDIT: Sorry for the newbish question... how do I mount it(question mark) I really need to get the keyboard fixed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 - Anti-Aliasing not working on all web pages Ive got the Firebird with GTk2 and XFT whatever version and not all sites have an anti-aliasing. On some there is and some there are none. On Neowin, the text are anti-aliased but when Im posting, the text Im writing is all pixelated, if thats the right term.

That's an easy fix. On a clean install of Gentoo, the Microsoft Core Fonts are not recognized and I don't know why. Your browser is using an alternative font which doesn't have the ability to be anti-aliased. It took me forever to figure out that all you have to do is reemerge fontconfig and restart X for all of the Microsoft fonts to be recognised.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the help Static Void, it did the trick! Now can anyone help me with the other stuff.

EDIT: If someone can help me with my iPod I'd be really grateful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i dont have an ipod myself, if it is recognised as a device then u can mount it with:

# mkdir /mnt/ipod

# mount /dev/device /mnt/ipod

where device is the name of the device (usb0???)

i have no idea how an ipod interfaces with a computer, so i cant be much more help

there is a program that can do itunes (or so i have heard) VideoLAN

# emerge videolan

if you have mounted the ipod, then you should be able to use the normal file browser to copy and paste ???

running emerged apps:

usually if you type in teh first 2 or 3 letters of the emerged app and press (TAB)(TAB) it will pop up with a list of options

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's the thing, I created a mount point but I don't know the /dev/device.

EDIT: Oh, more importantly, I don't have a sound card, I have on-board. Does that mean I can proceed with configuring ALSA or does this require another method to get my sound to work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great news, got my iPod to be hooked up. It's /dev/sda2. Anyway, anyone know of a good program that will extract songs from my iPod? I don't want to manually name each file.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great news, got my iPod to be hooked up. It's /dev/sda2. Anyway, anyone know of a good program that will extract songs from my iPod? I don't want to manually name each file.

can't you just copy the entire contents of a directory to your hd?

something like

cp /mnt/ipod/[directory]/* home/[username]/music/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 - GDM doesnt pop up at boot Instead some other old school fashion logon appears (I think xdm). I did everything properly, DISPLAYMANAGER=gdm (quote marks are there but the keyboard makes it as something else) and XSESSION=Gnome (again the quote marks are there).

Please tell me you uncommented the DISPLAYMANAGER line. People (read: me) leave the hash there so often. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK say here's another newbish question: it's about the keyboard and sound thing. It's fixed but it's not default. My default keyboard is set Internationally or something so I always have to switch it to "US" everytime I boot up. Does anyone know how I can "default" the US layout instead?

Also, I can get the sound working but I'd always have to unmute everything after reboot. Is there some way I can save my preferences?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In your /etc/rc.conf, you should be able to set your keymap as "us".

As for sound, if you are using ALSA, use the alsasound script. In other words, open /etc/modules.d/alsa and put your sound card module after "alias snd-card-0". In my case it looks like "alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1". REMEMBER TO UNCOMMENT THE LINE. Then run modules-update and rc-update add alsasound boot. That script will load the modules for your soundcard and reload your previous volumes at start up. ALSA is the best way to get sound, but if you are using OSS, I can tell you how to reload the voulme for that, just let me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.