A few newbie questions before install.

[GaMMa]

Well I'm going to try a stage 1 install. I've had linux for 2 weeks now and have got most of the commands down path (to my knowledge). Anway the only thing that troubles me is setting up the kernel, because there may something I don't understand while doing it. Is there a step to step n00b guide for compiling the kernel?

Also is there any way to have Win XP normally boot, but then make a boot disk that boots gentoo from a floppy?

Also with my experience (or lack there of (hahaha)) should I try getting gentoo installed? I wanted to try this distro when I first started linux, but people in forums turned me away. emerge sounds cool

[kraaij]

Hi,

[metalac]

if your machine is not used for anything inportant i.e. developing and such then I'd say go for it. you could have Gentoo and XP dual boot, but I'm not sure about the floppy. Since you will have to have Gentoo on HD anyways I'd say just go with dual boot and forget about floppy (ancient technology anyways ).

As far as the kernel compiling goes the hardest part of it is I'd say the acctuall config. There is lots of HOWTOS that are fairly straight forward there is acctually no more than 5 or so steps in kernel compile, and about 3 of them are you drinking your favorite beverage and watching stuff fly by in console for number of minutes depending on CPU power. The longest and harder part on your end is the config. There is a console type (asks you bunch of questions forever ) then there is graphic console witch is what I like the best and then there is config in X. Here you tell it all the info about your computer and all the things you'd like to have with your kernel like hardware support and so on. Now you could go ahead and select all of the things and your system should probably boot fine, but the main point of compiling the kernel is to weed out all the stuff you don't need so you make it extra small so it runs fast. You should probably try to get as much info about your pc as possible and then do the config.

[GaMMa]

Well the problem about not using a floppy is other people in my family use the PC. One less step for them is a good thing... I have 2 HDDs and I'd be putting gentoo on my 14GB hdb. How would I go about making a floppy in the command prompt?

As for configuring the kernel where can I get the most straigh forward tutorial? Where is the linux documentation project?

[rac]

[millenium_psyrax]

First of all, welcome to Linux.
Second of all, welcome to Gentoo.

To answer your first question. Linux is going through a time of marketing upheaval and specialisation difference. But underneath, all distributions are the same. What differs is the install process and the amount of freedom you have to choose exactly what you want on your system.

When I started using Linux a year ago. I went with the marketing propaganda. I installed Mandrake. And I must admit I was impressed by how easy it was to install. For me, it was as easy as installing windows. However, once I booted up the system, I realised there was a lot of crap that a) I will never use b) provided security holes into my system.

I mean, I am a c++ developer. What do I need apache, squid <<insert server program here >> for anyways. So I uninstalled them. This worked ok. But I found that I was spending nearly as much time uninstalling crap, as it would take me to just build what I needed. So, I used Mandrake for a week, which was as long as it took me to build a base LinuxFromScratch system. www.linuxfromscratch.org. Now everyone will tell you, linuxfromscratch is not for the newbie. But I was only a Linux user for a week, before I had my own X/Fluxbox/Base linuxfromscratch system up and running.

I used that for about 9 months. Till I heard about Gentoo. Gentoo is essentially a linuxfromscratch system, but a) it has support b) it has talented people who know a lot more than me about Linux, helping us all to get the system to work properly.

With gentoo, all you need to know is what you want to install, how to type emerge --pretend <<software package>>, to see what you are getting yourself into. And then emerge <<software package>>. Then do what you like on your system and when it is a rainy sunday afternoon, look on the net, read some docs, and configure your system a little more.

Gentoo is newbie friendly. If you could use DOS you can use Gentoo. (Plus the people who use gentoo are extremely knowledgable and helpful. And who to better learn Linux from than these types of people) END RANT

Second, set up GRUB to have a 5 second timeout or something, make Windows the default OS, and then just tell the others who use your computer that you are expanding your computing skills, they won't care that they see the GRUB bootscreen for 5 seconds. Floppies are dead. And there would be nothing worse than when you love Linux and you insert your floppy bootdisk in to start it up, only to find the floppy has corrupted.

Regards
Millenium Psyrax

[GaMMa]

I want to do the floppy idea though, anyone have any idea how to do it?

[Guest]

i dont recomend it, but....
cat /boot/bzImage > /dev/fd0


my recomendation:
install grub to the superblock of your /boot partition
dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/boot/bootsect.lnx count=1 bs=512
copy bootsect.lnx to your windows partition, and modefy boot.ini to include that(must be opend from notepad).

[craftyc]

I recommend installing GRUB onto the actual floppy. In the docs it says something like