Hi,

I am a newbie to Linux and I have only installed Ubuntu successfully so far. I am now trying to install Gentoo!..
When I boot from the liveCD, it detects all the hardware, but it stops after detection and says -

"Failed to start the X Server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view X server output to diagonise the problem?"
"Yes/No"

When I click NO it says -
"The X server is now disabled. Restart GDM when it is configured correctly."

And then I get the terminal (prompt) which says livecd root:


Please Help.

Thanks in advance
Karthik

You don't need X in order to install gentoo. Follow the instructions in this link and you'll be able to get gentoo up and running.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...x86.xml?full=1

Straight from Ubuntu to Gentoo - *big* jump. I found it difficult going from RH9.
It is not a newbie distro - despite what you might think from the new GUI installer. Good to learn on, but you'd better be patient.

Get the handbook - perhaps a newer version would be best.
I have only tried the GUI installer once - a VM client. Took several attempts, and it tried to destroy the partition table. I won't recommend it to anyone.

Neither would I as it crashed on my computer when I tried it on 2006.0.

The CLI installation has worked always and I never go far without my Gentoo livecd as I can repair my system easily with it.

CLI installation is easy but take your time with it. Easiest solution would be printing out the quick installation quide from Gentoo site and going through the installation with it. It took me around 4 hours to install the basic system at the first time. Now it goes in a hour.

Concur with Zmyrgel and others. I've done gentoo in about an hour and a half, but thats what used to be called Stage 3 + GRP (GRP=gentoo reference platform). It was undoubtedly the quickest way. No moding of USE flags etc etc (see handbook). You just install all the "bin" (pre-compiled) packages to get it up and running. Then when you want to finish for the night, you make sure that all the optimisation stuff is done (the use flags and stuff like that) and then issue the update command and leave it to it's own devices. 99 times out of 100, it will have sorted itself and compiled any packages you want, but weren't available pre-compiled.

regards

John

p.s. Oh and I used to find that while there was an absolute mountain of info/assistance etc, at the gentoo forums, if you don't do your research before asking a question, they have a way of "sniffing it out" and can come across as a little "aloof".