Gentoo on Banana Pi (totally gentoo noob)

[vladdrak]

Hello!
I just got myself a Banana Pi and thought that it might be the right moment for trying out Gentoo. My goal is to set up a desktop evironment. I'd like to have my boot on the SD card and the root on an external HDD. Now i looked up some material about installing Gentoo on RPI, even the installation wiki on arm, but each approach is slightly different. i know that Gentoo is somewhat about learning by experimenting, but i really try hard here to avoid the absolutely wrong path (due to time restraints). So, could someone please issue a step-by-step guide? I know it's kind of much to ask tho. Thanks in advance.

[NeddySeagoon]

vladdrak,

Welcome to Gentoo.

As a user new to Gentoo, start out by doing a normal install in a Virtual Machine. What you learn will stand you in good stead for installing on the Banana Pi.
You will also be able to use the Virtual Machine Gentoo to compile things for the Banana Pi.

Step 1, Get Virtual Box on your Linux Distro of choice - Windows will work too.
Step 2. Set up a VBox virtual machine with say 40G of HDD. You can manage in a lot less.
Step 3. Follow the Gentoo Handbook to install in the Virtual Machine - I'll let you Google that.
Step 4. Install Xorg - There is a guide :)
Step 5. Install the desktop(s) of your choice ... there are lots of guides
Step 6. Install crossdev and distcc so your Virtual Box Gentoo install can build packages for your Banana Pi.
Step 7. Repeat steps 2..5 on the Banana Pi using cross distcc.

We will teach you to fish here - not feed you a fish.
Post back for more detailed guidance.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[destroyedlolo]

Hi,

I guess you had a look on this thread where I explained how I installed my Banana, including distcc and cross compiling.
Speaking about Xcompiling, I still duno how to upgrade my compiler

But I haven't installed any GUI, it's a headless server.
As soon as I received my second bPI, will start also some hardware hacking and explain on my blog. For the moment, it's only in French but I'll continue in english if enough interests

Bye

Laurent

[cwr]

Life may be easier if you export the root file system via NFS, at least if you are running Linux on your development box. (I don't know if VirtualBox can export NFS mounts, and I suspect they would be very slow if it did).

That's the setup I use for the BeagleBone Black, a similar board to the RPi, and it allows me to cross-compile a lot of stuff on the desktop without touching the BBB. Stuff that won't cross-compile (Python is a major offender) gets compiled on the BBB overnight if necessary.

You need a lightweight window manager - I installed Enlightenment, but I seldom use it as the command line is easier for the experimental stuff I do.

Will