Installation using Gentoo Live CD - How do I do a custom partition installation?
 

I have several partitions:

Primary 60GB Windows
Primary 3GB VFAT (data partition)
Extended:
5GB - Linux data partition (mounted on Linux OSs))
14.5GB - Mandriva (all but swap)
15.0GB - Debian (all but swap)
15.5GB - ... FOR GENTOO
1.5GB - SWAP

The Gentoo partition is already formatted ext3 and ready to go. So is the SWAP partition.

If I choose and select the 15.5GB partition and then click on 'Recommended layout', I'm pretty sure it'll divide that partition into "/", "/boot" and "swap". I already have a swap partition. I would like it to install "/" & "/boot" only (everything except "swap") and to use the existing SWAP partition. How do I do this? Does anybody know?

Many thanks.

Hmm, I wouldn't use that basic layout, not with Gentoo. Remember that you'll be doing lots of compiling from now on so it may be a good idea to keep certain things away from your / partition. My own is set up like this:
4 GB /usr/portage
4 GB /tmp + /var
10 GB / (can be smaller: basic Gnome is only 2GB - but this increases fast as soon as you add more)
2GB swap

What's with the /usr/portage? That's the directory where all your source files are kept and there are tons of them: just after installing 2007.0, they already took up 2.4GB - and they'll only grow in time.
I keep /var and /tmp apart because those are the place where compiling actually takes place (unless you do it in RAM); they are very likely to cause a of fragmentation so they are best kept away from your system files.
Also, I use xfs instead of ext3 because it is faster (and that matters - compiling a very basic Gnome on one of the top Core 2 Duos took me well over six hours; twice that on my AMD3800...).

Btw, if you were hoping to save some time by installing the packages from the livecd instead of compiling them, I'm afraid that you may be disappointed. Gentoo livecds are pretty buggy as a rule; I found that the latest installer would constantly freeze if I tried to install the files from the cd so I was forced to install everything from the internet and compile it myself.

Thanks for all the info. My question was much simpler than that, however, I'm glad you gave me the extra tips. All I wanted was to know was which button/widget/icon to click on in order to custom choose my partition layout. But based on what you've said and what I've heard, I don't think I'm quite ready for Gentoo at this point. I think I'll install something easier like Slackware or CentOS.

You see, I've already installed 2 other Linux OSs on my box and have a triple boot system (Windows too). If I muck Gentoo up, I might have to start all over. I would like to install a different operating system. I already have an rpm based distro (Mandriva), a Debian based distro (Debian) and the idea here was to install another type of Linux. I guess it'll be Slackware based or RH based...

What would you suggest? (For an easy installation which includes GRUB, not LILO...)

Well, I wasn't trying to scare you away from Gentoo - it's a nice distribution but it does take lots of time to install and maintain. It has an excellent handbook but it wouldn't hurt to have a good understanding of at least the basics before you start out.

If you would like to try out a different type of distro, I would strongly recommend Sabayon. It is essentially a pre-compiled Gentoo - in other words, you get a Gentoo system that takes only an hour or so to install (if you use the dvd, the cd should install even faster). It is the most beginner-friendly form of Gentoo that I know of. And everything works the Gentoo way - for example, it uses "emerge" instead of apt-get or urpmi/yum/yast.

Fedora is nice, too, but if you are already using Mandriva, it won't be very different from what you already know. Slackware is interesting but I prefer pure BSD instead of a mixture of Linux and BSD. Not to mention that it is a PITA if you have very new hardware. Maybe you would like to try a real Unix? I can recommand FreeBSD and Solaris - not too difficult to install but so different from Linux that you'll have to learn everything almost from scratch (especially with Solaris) - but both have less software packages available and have somewhat more limited hardware support . And I think I should also mention that, unlike Linux, they can only be installed in a primary partition - if you haven't got any ofthose left, then they do not make a good choice.