ok this is what i have

AMD64 3200 and i got it retail......at a really good price
768 ram
Albatron Geforce4 4200ti 128meg Turbo Ed/ overclocks well
MSI K8T Neo VIA chipset 8237 Motherboard
Logitech MX700
3 harddrives

i guess that is the essential stuff for the most part. I can't get sound to work... I can't get video drivers to install. I am having so much trouble with fedora and i want a 64bit OS Should i get Gentoo up and going???

How hard is it? I don't have a lot of time to work on it usually so i need something that isn't going to be much of a headache. For those of you running it

What do you think????





www.hardwarespeed.com

i have core 2.... I have repeatedly tried install video and sound drivers... different routes.... can't find a way to get the kernel source for the video drivers and a lot of other stuff. the auto install program doesn't work period

What kind of video card do you have? I didn't have any trouble installing any drivers or getting anything to work, I literally (twenty minutes ago) just installed Fedora Core 1 on my Toshiba Satellite laptop; and everything seems to be working.

If you don't have a lot of time / or don't want to tinker to get thing's to work / or your not on a high speed connection I wouldn't recommend Gentoo, period.

actually i think installing nvidia drivers on redhat is pretty easy. of course, the nvidia drivers do not support kernel interfaces for newer kernels. so you need to install the kernel-source. And it will do just fine. I think if you do this right, then it should work.

ps: if you do not have time to configure your os, get microshits windoze ^^

http://www.icy-pixel.net

I agree with Soulful93. i love gentoo, i left redhat behind long ago and wouldn't go back. but after the three weeks i spent getting my hardware stable (which i'll write another post about), it's taken a solid week, a few hours a day with some all night downloads/installs, to get a system i can begin to work with.
if you've bought an AMD64 it means you like being on the cutting edge though right? and you're prepared to have to work out a few problems yourself...

should i start from stage 1 ??? when i install gentoo????

Doesn't really matter - with an AMD64 it doesn't take that long to get thru the stages.Just make sure you read this first:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=144604

Thank you a lot. I really appreciate it. I guess i have some reading ahead of me. Well wish me luck.


where do i go to change my user options. I seem to not to be able to find options to do it.....

What user options? For LQO?

Just make sure that you'll be able to get everything you'll need in 64 bit.Some things don't work there and probably wont for a long time because they rely on 32 bit binaries (eg. some video codecs - the win32 codecs wont do you any good there).You can setup a 32 bit environment for things like that but it looks like a bitch to do so
Next time I get a 64 bit machine I'll probably just install a 32 bit and a 64 bit distro on it.

thought it had support for both and 32 and 64 bit????

oh well, i can install both i suppose. I am having problems with sound though.

8237 via sound

Via shouldn't be a problem.Worked fine for me with a via based laptop and alsa.
64 bit and 32bit are really different systems and to run 32 bit apps on a 64 bit system you'll need to setup emulation - that's a software thing and has nothing to do with the cpu.The cpu works fine with a 64 and 32 bit system.It's just that a 32 bit app doesn't work too good when you link it to 64 bit libs and the other way around.That's a murky area right now because every distro sets 32 bit emulation up differently in a 64 bit environment.

i'd start from stage 3.
it's all a bit cutting edge, so there aren't that many options. the installer maintainer has probably made pretty good choices, and it means you can get straight into learning the system, instead of spending days installing everything from your window manager to your web browser. not like your old p-II install, where there are so many permutations of hardware and so many things you might be wanting to use it for that starting from scratch will make a big difference.


RacerD: my via8237 sound worked straight up... i had to read some of the docs and discover alsamixer, but everything i've tried is ok now...

and people seem to be having success installing 32bit stuff - i reckon if you can get 32bit windows apps to work under Wine (and it doesn't seem that hard) then you can get your codec going without too much trouble?

Well - this looks like trouble to me:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/a...?part=2&chap=4

yeah, you're right.
i read a post yesterday by someone who made wine, at least, sound really simple. most of the replies were like "this worked fine for me, someone should turn this thread into a HOW-TO". but now i can't find it at all...

the best thing about gentoo is the discussions. every problem i've had so far, someone is already working on it, and talking about it. easy to find answers. that's what i need.