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Old 06-18-2003, 04:26 PM   #1
raid517
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Installing Gentoo Linux


Hi I am installing Gentoo Linux on hopefully what will be a dual boot system. However this is now the second attempt as on the previous occasion I managed to mess lilo.conf up. So this time before I reboot I'm looking for some advice as to whether I have got it right this time or not.

My partition table is as follows:

/dev/hda1 NTFS, windows XP
/dev/hdb1 EXT3 /boot
/dev/hdb2 swap
/dev/hdb3 ReiserFS /

My lilo.conf file currently looks like this:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
lba32
default=linux

image=/boot/bzImage
label=Gentoo
read-only
root=/dev/hdb3

#For dual booting windows/other OS
other=/dev/hda1
label=WindowsX

Does this look right? My boot image is in hdb1 which is my boot partition.

You might have to know a little about the Gentoo way of doing things before you answer this question as it is slightly different. Here is an quote from the docs:


quote:
# cd /usr/src/linux
# source /etc/profile
Again, this updates your paths. If you get an error saying gcc is not found,
this is what you may have to do.
# make menuconfig
# make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install
# mv /boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage.orig
[if bzImage already exists]
# cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot


So in effect the Gentoo process does not create a vmlinuz entry, as is the standard practice, it just moves the bzImage file to the boot directory.

Can anyone advise what I have to to to get it right this time? I definately don't want to go through this very long process again.

Q

Last edited by raid517; 06-18-2003 at 04:56 PM.
 
Old 06-18-2003, 04:38 PM   #2
acid_kewpie
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Quote:
So in effect the Gentoo process does not create a vmlinuz entry, as is the standard practice
why do you say that? you acn call it whatever you want...

the lilo setup looks fine. personally i'd suggest going with grub instead though, config might look a little scary at first, but the end result looks a lot nicer and it's also a lot easier to get back into the system if something is wrong.

you certainly shouldn't have reinstalled from scratch though, just from a lilo problem. just boot to the gentoo cd and chroot like you did previously, source the relevant files again and you'll be fine.
 
Old 06-18-2003, 04:56 PM   #3
raid517
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Thanks dude. My confusion is that I'm still more or less a Linux n00b. I can pretty much follow instructions, but i'm still not sure what everything is yet or what it does.

As for Grub, yes I like Grub, it is robust and pretty to look and and on the whole highly effective. But I know nothing about configuring it. I however know a little about lilo, so untill I'm a bit more confident - and just to get things going I thought it best to stick with what I was familiar with.

So in your view, knowing that my boot image "bzImage" is on /dev/hdb1 and my root partition is on /dev/hdb3 are you 100% certain I have got this right? It is a n00b question and I appologise for that, but I want to be sure I can at least get to run level 3 this time.

One other point is, when you do emerge system, does this install X too, or do I need to install X seperately?

Q

Last edited by raid517; 06-18-2003 at 05:42 PM.
 
Old 06-18-2003, 05:22 PM   #4
acid_kewpie
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well it's conceptually a little easier on lilo for a simple installation like yours. you can just check with "ls" wether that file is there or not really. if it's there and lilo installs correctly then you should be fine, and will then have to rely on the quality of the kernel you built.... so run "lilo -v" to check everything looks ok. lilo shouldn't install unless everything looks right.

not sure exactly what system does cover really. i don't believe it does, but it's easy enough to add on.
 
Old 06-18-2003, 06:01 PM   #5
fancypiper
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Quote:
Originally posted by raid517
One other point is, when you do emerge system, does this install X too, or do I need to install X seperately?
No, the system is the basic stuff you need to run Linux in the console.

You will have to build X by emerging a window manager or desktop environment. In fact, I think if you emerge mc that will drag along X with it.

Here is how I built mine from stage one chroot from inside of my Redhat distro(I have dial up, so I had some hoops to jump and this was easiest):
Code:
cd /usr/portage
scripts/bootstrap.sh
emerge sync
emerge system
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern /etc/localtime
emerge -u ppp wvdial gaming-sources gentoo sysklogd dcron reiserfsprogs mc links fluxbox
rc-update add sysklogd default
crontab /etc/crontab
rc-update add dcron default
rc-update add gpm default
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
I didn't bother to re-boot at this point as I had researched what I wanted to install, so I just got and made my kernel so alsa nvidia, etc would compile OK and continued on until I had it fully built.

I did my first from scratch and as soon as links emerges, I was browsing the Gentoo and the ex-lno forums.

Great fun being forced into learning Linux with the command line.

Midnight Commander
 
  


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