I guess this subject requires clarification. Here's what I want to do.

I'm using gentoo, with a system that's up and running. I want to rebuild this system from scratch.
I'd like to download some ebuilds off the internet, and their dependencies, then burn the distfiles over on a DVD.

When I'm done doing that, I want to put these distfiles into the new gentoo system, and start building and compilling the system.

Basically, I want to download the distfiles while online before starting to rebuild the system offline.

How do I do that?

Thanks

I'm still not sure I followed it correctly, but I'll give it a shot.

To get all the distfiles needed to rebuild your running machine with all dependancies.

emtpy tree and fetch-only will download all the distfiles and ebuilds. Then you can copy /usr/portage/distfiles/* to your new DVD.


Is that what you were asking?

Yes!!! That's exactly it! Thank you!

Hoping that this thread doesn't end too quick... On my new system, how do I use my offline files afterwards? I can't just copy them back into the distfiles right?

Assuming you don't clean your distfiles when you run emerge, you can copy /usr/portage/distfiles/* to a new cdr/dvdr. You'll also want to copy /usr/portage/* so that that portage matches the distfiles you've already downloaded. The gentoo forums has a howto document to build your own live cd with all the distfiles you like. You can also script it to do an auto-install on boot time, sort of like an unattended install on Windows.

Keep the questions coming, I'm here all week...

Great!

So if I copy /usr/portage/* after running emerge -ef system && emerge -ef all_the_software_I_want_here. And copy the portage folder back, I should be OK.

You think /usr/portage would fit on a DVD? (with openoffice, kde, firefox, mozilla, neverball, gl-117?)

thanks musicman_ace

In order to build yourself a CD/DVD with contains all the information to do an Offline install, you need the following:

1. portage sync'd but only to the time when your distfiles were correct.
2. All the distfiles that match that portage date.
3. A live CD. You could hack your own live CD, or run the standard live CD and use the option to cache the CD to ram so you can mount a second CD. The second CD being the one with your portage and distfiles.

Once you have that, you can boot the Universal CD. copy portage and distfiles. Run any emerges that you downloaded when you used the -f option on emerge.

My previous post was slightly in-accurate. To download all the distfiles, you'd have to do system and world.

This would also read in the packages in the World file which will typically include 10-200MB more than just system.

Will that include an empty system (doing emerge -ef system && emerge -ef world) with the basics, or all the packages I have installed so far?
I don't want all the packages I have installed so far, but only a blank system and some packages I select for the new system.

So, I can
emerge --sync
emerge -ef system
emerge -ef world
cp -r /usr/portage* /home/backup/portage

burn it on an DVD

boot gentoo, load the system into the RAM (512MB of ram)
install the new portage snapshot
load the DVD
cp -r /mnt/cdrom/* /usr/portage/
(then go on with stage 2 install)

right?

thanks

The -ef will download all installed software and its dependancies. When you use that to install for a new system, you will still have to choose what to install so the possiblity to clone your old system is there but it doesn't mean that the system will be cloned unless you emerge each of the same packages.
Your procedure should be something like

emerge --sync
emerge -ef system
emerge -ef world
cp -r /usr/portage* /home/backup/portage

burn it on an DVD

boot gentoo, load the system into the RAM (512MB of ram)
load the DVD
cp -r /mnt/cdrom/* /usr/portage/
Do whichever stage you like. You'll have the availability to do a stage1, stage2,or stage3

thanks musicman_ace

if your not gone still, I've got a problem.

emerge -ef system will emerge not only what I want, but also every package I installed so far. I don't want that, I'd like if it emerge what's needed to get from stage2 to stage3 only, as if I didn't install anything yet.

thanks

If you've got a test system that you could install a base stage2 system on, then you could create a list of the packages installed as a stage2 and then remove those distfiles from your /usr/portage/distfiles directory. It is actually better to keep those those, because if you upgrade your gcc compiler and toolkit, you should rebuild 'system' so that all packages are compiled with the new gcc compiler and toolkit. If you don't, then only packages installed or upgraded since the gcc update are compiled with the new compiler. In the end, it is a matter of disk space, so you'll have to make that call.

I have some boxes laying around waiting to be used, I'll take one and carry on with your advice

thanks

How would I be able to get all distfiles so I could install anything offline? I'm trying to setup a Gentoo system at home and I only have dialup, which really is not the ideal for a Gentoo install. Would I just download all of the distfiles from a mirror and then burn them on multiple CD's or an external HDD?

Thanks in advance!

i've answered this question in the previous posts, but here we go again.



1. You'll need a portage snapshot that matches the distfiles for that day.
2. (emerge -ef system) would download all packages currently installed.
3. (emerge -f packagename) would download all files for the specified packages. cron, udev, grep..
3. You could dowload all these thing then burn then to cd/DVD or use an Ext Hard drive and move the distfiles to /usr/portage/distfiles/



The -f on emerge will Fetch the files for a given package. If you fetch system then you get all packages that make up a base gentoo install. World would get all the packages you install since the install and any updated versions of those.