Goddamn GTK+ Installer wiped my partitions!

gemmell

I bought a 64 bit machine and booted the latest amd64 2006.1 live cd.

I had a hard drive with 5 partitions on it, one of which contained my old (32 bit) installation of gentoo, one for boot, 2 for data and one which was free. So I fired up the GTK installer and told it to reformat hdk4 from xfs to reiser and install there. So it started, said "resizing partitions" then stopped and said "Can't resize hdk2 (ext2)" and errored out. There's no option for restarting or resuming or anything!

For starters, what the fuck is it doing resizing anything? I didn't tell it to, I told it to use the current setup and install over hdk4. Secondly, it's wiped my partition table such that the only thing left is my ext2 boot partition! Bye bye data.

I've setup gentoo multiple times via the normal manual setup procedures and they've always been great. Then I try this half arsed gtk effort and booya, screwed everything! Thankfully I've got the real important stuff backed up.

I've been a long time gentoo fan and this has really turned me off. Maybe they shouldn't even TRY to be user friendly. I'm a software engineer so I know how hard it can be to get things right, but thats just crap.

~Gemmell

sonicbhoc · Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:25 am Post subject:

gemmell · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:24 pm Post subject:

Jaglover · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject:

Before debating define concepts.
Voltaire

People often confuse user-friendly with newbie-friendly. For instance, Gentoo is a very user-friendly OS when used from CLI. But not noob-friendly...

gemmell · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:13 pm Post subject:

spadearcher · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:27 pm Post subject:

I'm very sympathetic -- and perhaps as frustrated. I've been trying to install Gentoo behind Ubuntu and SUSE, to a specific partition which I established before any distro installations. I had no problems installing Ubuntu and SUSE roots into their previously designated partitions, but have been unsuccessful in doing the same thing with Gentoo -- attempted with both graphical interface and command line, and with the minimal CD. The various installation options just don't seem to be able to accomodate this specificity of root installation. At least, not that I can discern.

swooshOnLn · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:49 pm Post subject:

spadearcher, its as easy as configuring whatever boot manager you use to boot from that partition. It doesnt matter if its the 2nd, 3rd, or 200th partition. Granted, gentoo is not "point and click" and I have no idea how your system is set up.
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spadearcher · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject:

Swoosh (if I can may you that for short?): I'm not entirely certain I understood your guidance. Booting I don't think is my problem. Booting can only occur (and become a problem?) after installation. And I haven't been able to discover in the Gentoo installation process how I can install my root (/) into my sda6 partition -- and not wipe out my whole partition scheme and my other distros! Any further guidance or clarification would be appreciated.

Jaglover · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:52 pm Post subject:

Gentoo can be easily and safely installed to whatever partition you like:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml

Pick the installation manual for your arch and that's it. If you do not understand what you are doing and have to follow instructions blindly then you are not ready for Gentoo.

gemmell · Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:56 pm Post subject:

MM23 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 83

Yeah, it has a tendency to do that sometimes. It's pretty much universally agreed that the GUI installer is terrible -- don't use it.

spadearcher · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 12:28 am Post subject:

Gemmell: Thanks for your clear and helpful advice, which I will gladly follow up on. I especially appreciate your referring me to a guidance source other than the basic handbook. I will let you (and the forum) know how it turns out. Thanks also for the link to your blog. Some very interesting articles. (I noted the rant previously in this forum in a slightly reworded rendering.) I will pass along to my wife the pieces on women in the IT field, as she's been a programmer/analyst for 30 years in a field here (in Washington) which abounds in high level female practitioners. I wonder where the authors of those pieces live and work?

Kate Monster · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:08 pm Post subject:

Gemmell: Have you done anything else to the hard drive since the GUI installer messed everything up? There is an application you can use to get your partition table back, sadly the name escapes me at the moment...

cwr · Veteran Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969

I've used Gentoo since the 2004 version (I can't recall which) and had no problems with
install (which was pretty well documented) until 2006.1. I was trying to install off the
2006.1 DVD, and avoided the menu-driven installer since it was reported to be buggy
even on it's second release. (It first saw the light around 2006.0). However, even the
alternative installer, whose name I can't recall, first tried to overwrite my partition table
and then, fortunately, crashed and hung. Rebooting the DVD showed that no damage
had been done, and having no spare machine to mess about on I wasn't about to make
another attempt.

The only reliable way to install Gentoo seems to be off the stage3 tar files, which is quick,
simple and well-documented. The catch-22 is that the stage 3 files aren't present on any
of the standard Gentoo CDs, so you need a broadband connection to download them.
Since I don't have broadband, I haven't upgraded to 2006.1, though I'd very much like
to move to 2007.0 when it comes out.

This isn't too helpful, I'm afraid, but until the installer is debugged Gentoo installation will
remain a bit dodgy.

Will

swooshOnLn · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject:

spadearcher · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:12 pm Post subject:

Gemmell: I've been following your instructions using a DSL (Damn Small Linux) live CD, and with one very minor exception, everything has worked fine. I then progressed to the Gentoo quickinstall site and successfully downloaded and extracted the stage 3 tarball into my /mnt/gentoo directory. I then shut down and went off to lunch before compiling the kernel. Now, on rebooting the DSL and going to root, my /mnt/gentoo directory has disappeared. I was assuming it was in the /dev/sda6 partition where I'd created it, but I can't find it anywhere. Has all my effort so far been in vain? Was everthing I'd done thus far simply residing in RAM and not on my hard disk? I am perplexed and of course frustrated. Everything seemed to be going so well! Have you, or anyone else, any advice for me? Thanks.

sonicbhoc · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:21 pm Post subject:

alright, so you made the /mnt/gentoo mount point. Did you make the same mistake I usually make and unpack the tarballs and stuff before mounting /dev/sda6 or whatever to /mnt/gentoo?

Make sure the first thing after you make the directory you mount the drive, or you'll end up like me and waste a good 20 minutes downloading stuff, only to have to download it again.

erik258 · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject:

spadearcher,

ever watch the movie the maltese falcon? 2 private detectives, last names concatenated is your username :)

Damn Small Linux probably isn't going to have /mnt/gentoo. That is only a mount point for your root directory per gentoo's install procedure. It's just a regular old directory upon which you mount your root filesystem.

the directory doesn't have to be called gentoo, it doesn't even have to be in mount. just don't mount it somewhere you need to get files from. that's why i recommend simply creating such a directory and then mounting your root fs like so:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject:

gemmell: I had the same thing happen to me when they first came out with the GLI. I was only using it on a re-install so that I could give intelligent answers to the many questions about it in the forums at the time. <sarcasm>It's nice to see that they have made progress in the many months since I last tried it...</sarcasm> I sincerely hope that you, unlike me, had some recent backups from which to restore.
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erik258 · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:44 pm Post subject:

in my opinion, partitioning is something that should never be done automatically. the results have to be overviewed anyway, so why bother.

for that matter, although i am aware that gentoo is about choices, i have no idea why anyone would choose to use the graphical installer. I can have stage3 unzipped before it even gets done booting!

I have never had good luck with the installer, and assume that its only value is that you can browse the web w/ a graphical web browser (BIG bonus there) on the same computer, without using ssh. but the install wizard just makes way too many assumptions; also it installs hundreds of packages all at once, when you're not even running your newly optimized kernel yet! then all the problems compound on each other, especially when you go to boot and a thousand things are broken, all at once, and if you just tried to reboot right after the system was installed and then did packages one by one you'd be able to solve the problems one-by-one!

just ranting, i guess.
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spadearcher · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:50 pm Post subject:

Thanks you guys for hanging in there with me. Same thing happened again. I was careful to mount dev/sda6 on my newly created /mnt/gentoo directory, and checked at varous stages to make certain it was still mounted there. I downloaded stage 3 and portage and carried out the quickinstall instructions up to the point of configuring the kernel (concerning which I had some problems -- see following.) Anyway, I rebooted the live cd and, behold, the /mnt/gentoo directory (and all it contained) had disappeared again. I may have to bite the bullet and go back to try using the gentoo minimal install cd.

On configuring the kernel, in Section 2.19 in the quickinstall instructions, two commands are required: "emerge" and "make," neither of which were recognized when I tried to execute the command instructions. Now, of course, I'm familiar with the "make" command, but I never heard of the "emerge" command before, and it's not even in my "Linux In A Nutshell."

Anyway, I'm getting a lot of practice in command line downloading, even if I can't retain anything. Also, my nom de plume, SpadeArcher is of course from The Maltese Falcon (book and film). Pleased you recognized it.

erik258 · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:04 pm Post subject:

spadearcher,

that is one of my favorite movies ; ) is the book better? i've never read it.

concerning your missing emerge and make, you probably didn't chroot into /mnt/gentoo. emerge is a package manager that goes hand in hand with portage, and therefore gentoo. itwill automatically download, patch, and then isntall kernel sources for you (in this case). the emerge program is part of the stage3 tar.bz2 you unzipped to populate /dev/sda6. you'll have to chroot into /mnt/gentoo (or your mount point of /dev/sda6 if that isn't it) and then you'll be able to run make and emerge.

concerning the missing /mnt/gentoo, as I said before, you can't change the CD and the CD doesn't know you want to mount /dev/sda6 at /mnt/gentoo (or anywhere else for that matter). you must remount /dev/sda6 every time you boot from a boot CD! make sense?
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gemmell · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:18 pm Post subject:

spadearcher · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject:

Erik and Gemmell: Thanks for the quick response. I in fact this last time had done everything you both just advised me to do, and still couldn"t find my work after rebooting. Everthing goes into RAM and is apparently not retained anywhere on the hard drive, that I can make our.

While Huston's (and Bogart's) version of the Falcon is a classic, Huston (who also wrote the screenplay) did a great job of adapting the book, which itself is recognized as a literary classic. (Dashiell Hammet was the author.) If you have any interest in this, you must read the novel (which is all over in paperback). It of course is a precurser to Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe novels which followed the Falcon book by several years.

timeBandit · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:53 pm Post subject: