I have Gentoo Linux on a CD, and am thinking of installing it to replace RH 9.0 on my computer. Looking at the docs, Gentoo looks pretty complex to install. Next weekend I am planning to install it next weekend when I have lots of free time. Does anyone here have any advice on installing Gentoo, and is it worth it to replace RH 9.0 in the first place?

Since redhat is discontinued.. yeah, its worth replacing...

Complicated to install? Well, only if you cant follow step by step instuctions...

I recently installed Gentoo.

If you follow the instructions (which are very thorough), you shouldn't have any problems.

make SURE to print a hard copy of the instructions, I know this seems simple, but some people think they can just jot down a few notes themselves and wing it. You might also want to have a list of your hardware specs if you dont have them down pat.

The instructions are actually on the cd (well sometimes anyway) and you can open one console for the instructions and do the install on another one.Worth it? - depends what you are after.If you want something that comes with all the nice little configuration tools gentoo is not for you.

As per other comments.

print off the instructions/install guide it's so much easier to follow.

I'd also add that you get the desktop install guide as well.

The quickest way to install gentoo, is as a "stage 3 +GRP" (GRP is pre-compiled binaries of the common app's and as it can take 15+ hours to download and compile kde, it's a good idea to start from there).

I'd also say the maybe you should get the latest 2 disc "liveCD" set (probably 2004.0). If you just follow the install, you should get a 2.4 kernel with 2004.0, unless you make sure that you have your net connection set up and running during the install, then when it get's to the bit about installing kernel's and sources it's the dev-sources that offer the 2.6 kernel (this is due to be superceded when the 2004.1 maintainence release comes out sometime soon).

Oh, and it's worthwhile having a good look at their document site, because it's handy to understand what's going on. Especially with portage.

Finally the doc's are all here. Some of them have printable versions, click the buttons. If you find that you want to print something that doesn't seem to have a printable version, then where the document URL address end's in ".xml" then you just change that to ".xml?style=printable" obviously without the quotation marks. And have a good look around their forums.

regards

John

p.s. If you're used to redhat, I'm not sure if redhat is the same as mandrake, inthat you can get away withjust using a single partition for everything.

I tried every "whichway" with gentoo, and it only installed when I partitioned up so I had, at least their default of boot, swap and root.

Okay. I have the docs ready to print out for next weekend, 24 pages of size 8 Times New Roman which applies to me. I burnt the applications disk as well. I planned on stage 3, but I just want to make sure that it won't effect me that my wireless card has no Linux driver. If this will affect me, I will have to lug my computer to the basement and run a magical blue wire to the router. So can I proceed through the installation without getting online? I plan to hack together something ugly for a driver when I can understand how to hack a driver together once I install Gentoo.

The stage 3 + GRP is, as I understand it, perfectly capable of being installed without a net connection.

The only odd thing I ever encountered was the bit toward the end of the install where it say's about mounting the 2nd CD with the app's. It didn't like that - and that's where I found out just how long it takes to download and compile kde i.e. in frustration and ignorance I issued the command and thinking that it didn't matter that I couldn't mount the app's CD, figured that it would be straight forward just to get it via net connection. I was just very suprised when it took 15 hours - it told me that it was about 90+ individual packages (so what thinks me, I've got a super dooper half meg adsl connection), but it's the compile time that takes so long.

If you're definitely not going to be able to connect during the install, here's the link from the gentoo forums about how to sort out the mounting of the app's cd (if you don't already know how to do that - sorry, don't mean to be patronising). You may need to print that out as well so you've got the info to hand.

Good luck. Maybe you'd post a "how I did this" type reply when you've got it up and running. I'm sure that there'll be others who will ask the same questions.

regards

John

I just wanted to chime in and say that I just did a networkless stage 3 install of gentoo using the universal 2004.0 cd. I do remember reading that the universal iso is the only one that can be used for a networkless install.

It went fine, you just need to skip a few steps (print the instructions....it's very important). Once I had the base system installed I rebooted to see if it worked...then I set up networking after the fact.

Print the instructions! My god.. what a waste of paper.

Just read the screen that comes up when it tells you how to access the instructions on the cd... use the txt version instead of the html.. and ctrl-alt-f2 load the instructions on the second console, and follow along with them as you install. Then you don't lose your place cause your cursor keeps it for you

I never had any luck using the genkernel utility for configuring, compiling, and installing a kernel. I decided to sit down and configure it all myself and had much greater success.

Just installed it meself. Used the genkernel but with --config to do a bit of tweaking. But there wasn't anything worth tweaking. Took me perhaps 3 hours solid. And from there I got a basic Gentoo box with a basic window manager and one or two x apps. Gonna take a while to get it doing summat useful though

Oh, and. DO, use genkernel. Just use it as genkernel --menuconfig all And that will get you a much better system than trying to configure it yourself Initrd images and all

i set up my gentoo box with the universal 2004.0 cd and a working 56k ltmodem. the installation is not too difficult actually, don't let the wordy manual scares you. The manual is really one of the strengh of gentoo, never seen such a detailed manual before. To top it off, it is constantly updated. It used to be a all platforms manual, now they have split them into x86, PPC etc etc.

I never get the GRP working, So everything is done the gentoo way. ie compile from source. So i skipped KDE and Gnome and uses fluxbox. My longest time spent on any package compilation is on Xfree, took about 3 hrs including downloading from mirrors.

As soon as I get some blank CD-Rs, I will install it. I might be able to get networking too by placing my computer close to the router!