Installing Gentoo....
 

I know, I know, your asking your self, why is a noOb asking about gentoo....Well I was surfing around on the web and found the fluxbox.org website and thats where it all begins. I have been a windows user all my life. I have numoruse windows books to help me with problems I have had in the past. I saw the awsome schemes and windows used in fluxbox and thought:"I want my computer to look like this..." so I began looking around to find out how I would do this. And I stumbled upon gentoo.org. from there I downloaded and began my trivial pursuit of installing this OS.

I have a test pc that I am using for the install and if i is ever installed for me to learn the in, and outs of gentoo with out messing up the main system I am using now. Then after everything is good and I know what im doing I would install on this system. so my est pc is an old athlon thunderbird 800Mhz pc. with a little tiny 10 gig hd. I formatted the drive like this:
/dev/hda1/boot==32M
/dev/hda2/swap==+512M
/dev/hda3: extended=I guess about 9 gig
/dev/hda5/root=+4096M
/dev/hda6/home=+5129M

so I followed the install giude,handbook-x86.2005.1 from gentoo.org and got all the way to 10.d rebooting system. when I rebooted I got the gentoo splash and the selection of gentoo. when I choose it says:

Booting 'Gentoo Linus 2.6.12-r6'
root (hd0,4)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partitin type 0x83
kernel /kernel-2.6.12-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/hda5


Error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue...

my grub.conf is/was:

default 0

timeout 20

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.12-r6

root (hd0,4)

kernel /kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r11 root=/dev/hda5

So i figured I should have told grub.conf that root=(hd0,0) for boot and not root. at the time it was about 0500 in the morning. so I gave up and turned off the computer. now I cant find any of the directories. or files. like when I try cd /usr/src/linux = file or directory does not exsist. so im asking do I need to start over? or can I just (re)mount and get back to grub.conf and change what needs to be changed? and continue on with the install. if so how do I do this I have tried mount /mnt/gentoo and I get gentoo at the prompt/ but it wont (ls) /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles/ .

so im oping I am just not mounted correctly and I can get back to the state I was in at section 10d. but I'll start over if need be. it will only be my 4th time....lol:newbie:

so any help would be great. thanks in advance.

After a cursory glance over your post it would seem that you are
confusing the root of the filesystem (/) with the root user's home
directory (/root).

ie. hda5 needs to mount on "/" not "/root"

I suspect you will need to start again.

Well, just so as you follow that the example from the install guide is OK, this is what my grub.conf looks like:-

You'll notice that theres two kernel entries, this is only because since I installed the system, theres been a new kernel version issued and that's been "emerged", but I always leave it in the system, since I know it's worked ok and just in case I have problems upgrading the kernel (as per the instructions from the gentoo kernel upgrade guide), it's there for me to be able too boot back into.

Now I don't pretend to have all (ha! or any really) or the possible answers, but I understood that it's often more difficult (when you're starting out) not to have had the kernel compile an initrd.

Seriously though, I followed the guide exactly, for the instructions for the Stage 3 + GRP install (theres a few bits too watch out for, as suggested by the install guide, stuff like don't change any USE flags if you're going to use the GRP packages, do that post-install, and then when you do the upgrades/updates use the "--newuse" switch when doing the emerge - I understand that this makes your life considerably easier).

Additionally, if you're using a 10 gig hdd, OK I don't see why this shouldn't work, but whats the point of having an extended partition ? The system would/should see anything else as /dev/hdb anyway. I don't follow whether grub would see the / partition as hd0,3 or hd0,4 because I've not used it with extended partitions.

Maybe uberNUT69 has spotted the confusion ??? What does your fstab say ? i.e. the business of calling it /root instead of / and all that???

Mine looks like this;-
You should notice the difference between my partitioning scheme and yours, I only use 4 partitions (all primary) and no extendeds - which is deliberate, I do have nearly 50 gigs of space, but I'll probably just make my / and /home bigger at a later date if I start getting "tight" for space.

The bit that uberNUT69 was highlighting, is that the booting system looks for / and not /root, hence the possible error reply.

OK, end of my rambling!

regards

John

thanks for both of your replys. as of now I feel my main problem was I told grub the wrong drive to look for the kernel. I think*. but if that is all then I need to know how I can get back mounted correctly to edit the grub.conf. If no I would have to start over anyway. I looked in grub (Tabbed) and it showed 0,1,4,5 availible. so if I do start over that will change as well.

You can use the Gentoo CD as a rescue disk. Boot from it and mount the drive which has your menu.lst file. Change the file and then reboot.

Wait a minute - is the mount-point really the problem?
I suggest it's only a small grub-issue:
You are telling Grub to boot from /dev/hda5, but you have a /boot-partition on /dev/hda1.
Try this: When you get grub's boot-menu press 'e'
You can now edit the settings.
Mark the line root (hd0,4), press 'e' again.
Change it to root (hd0,0)
escape, 'b' to boot.

You could also delete that line root ... (by pressing 'd' I think), then edit next line.
You have tab-completion here, so erase the kernelname and type in:
kernel (hd0,0)/
then press <tab> and you'll get a list of possible choices.
This way you can try any partition if you didn't install grub in /dev/hda1 with /boot mounted.
Only remember: If you have no /boot-partition, the kernel line must include /boot:
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/

Yeah, Im stil here. I finally got back in after taking some time off...lol. and got back to the grub.conf and made it right. It booted and started in to grub and I got the kernel panic. so I figured hey, why not start from the begining again. I mean it is good practice. so I deleated the partitions and started over. so now I only have:
/dev/hda1 boot
/dev/hda2 swap
/dev/hda3 /
/dev/hda4 /home

Then at this command:# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
I got file or directory does not exsist.
so Iwent in and found proc and put that in and went on to:# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
and got again, /bin/bash file or directory does not exsist, even though I used ls /mnt/gentoo and could clearly see bin and with ls /mnt/gentoo/bin there is clearly a bash there aswell. So I am going to give it a go again from square one tomorrow, lol well today from the start.

I went back and checked everything and I am not sure where I went wrong. every other time I have had no problems with either of the above commands. But Im a glutton for punishment I guess.

/dev/hda /home
don't you mean /dev/hda4 or /dev/hda5 ?
how about you supply the _actual_ contents of fstab?
(to eliminate possible typos)

# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
file or directory does not exsist
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/proc
# mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc

# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
what is the output from:
# ls -l /mnt/gentoo/bin | grep sh

yeah it was /dev/hda4.

and to answer your question it says:

# ls -l /mnt/gentoo/bin | grep sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 680316 Jul 22 18:23 bash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Oct 30 01:56 rbash -> bash
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Oct 30 01:56 sh -> bash

this is exactly how it says it. the red letters are red on my screen.

ok if I have:
/dev/hda1 boot
/dev/hda2 swap
/dev/hda3 /
/dev/hda4 /home

how do I set up home? mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home , mount /dev/hda4 /mnt/gentoo/home ?
or mkdir /home , mount /dev/hda4 /home ?

and it is late so I prob wont get an answer quickly. so im goint to leave it be for now and fix it later.disregard this I did it this way:

mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home , mount /dev/hda4 /mnt/gentoo/home