When I do chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash, it gives me a FATAL ERROR: kernel too old message.

I'm not sure why it has said this, but I've wiped it out completely and went through the whole process again and the same message.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm using the 2006.1 handbook with the 2004.0 CD, but the laptop I'm installing it on doesn't have enough memory to boot the 2006.1 CD. :\

Is there anything I can do? A uname -a pulls up:

Linux livecd 2.4.25-gentoo [date and time] i586 Pentium MMX GenuineIntel GNU/Linux.

Be sure. Your laptop can't boot the 2006.1 "Minimal CD/InstallCD" ?

Its probably because your kernel is to old. Your using a old kernel with new libraries. I think its a problem with glibc and ntpl. Old kernels (before 2.6) don't support ntpl, thus, any glibc that supports ntpl might cause such a error. Im not sure if i got that error before, my memory isn't so good around that time, but it sounds familiar.

Tell me, how far into the installation did you get? Did you emerge any packages? Or did you not get that far?

In any even, use older libraries, or, get a new livecd that has a 2.6 kernel line, and i think that should solve it.

This occurs when you boot a 2.4 kernel and attempt to chroot into something that is using the newer glibc and kernel 2.6. You will need to find a newer boot cd to be able to chroot to your file system

I actually used the 2006.0 stage and got it to work. Unfortunately, 1.5GB is not the required amount you need to use Gentoo [edit: at least not the LiveCD], as it's well over 2GB and my computer doesn't have the storage capacity for the 2.6 kernel. I guess I'll install Win2000 back on it. Or find a smaller distribution. :-(

Thanks for the help, though.

Say what ???.
Are you talking about RAM or disk space ???.
It (at least the minimal liveCD) will install easy in 256Meg of RAM.
A source based distro like Gentoo ain't gunna work on real small disk space.

Disk space. I wasn't planning to have a lot of stuff on it. I just wanted to have something on it. Just basics like dillo, TWM, and small things like that.

Check for threads on small distros - binary distros.
Damn Small (DSL) might be a good start. For laptops I like Arch - it's optimized for i686, and installs next to nothing by default; you just add what you need.
A gig and a half might still be on the low side though.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's too old to boot off a thumbdrive, but I'm about to see if I can get the USB version of DSL or Puppy.

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention that the Satellite 305CDS has an i586, not a 686. Sounds like a nice distribution, though.