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darkarchon
Apprentice
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
Posts: 195
Location: Dallas, Texas
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 Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:42 am Post subject: Install Gentoo from working XP ? |
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How do I install Gentoo on a secondary hard disk from XP, which sits on the primary hard disk. Is this possible ?
I have one machine and I want to still use the XP environment while Gentoo is installing on the secondary hard disk i.e. in case of installation problems or questions.
My hope is that at some point I will swap the two and then upon boot I should get Gentoo up to the console prompt (or even more).
Thoughts ? Ideas ? Suggestions ?
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DrWoland
l33t
Joined: 13 Nov 2004
Posts: 603
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:50 am Post subject: Re: Install Gentoo from working XP ? |
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| darkarchon wrote: | How do I install Gentoo on a secondary hard disk from XP, which sits on the primary hard disk. Is this possible ?
I have one machine and I want to still use the XP environment while Gentoo is installing on the secondary hard disk i.e. in case of installation problems or questions.
My hope is that at some point I will swap the two and then upon boot I should get Gentoo up to the console prompt (or even more).
Thoughts ? Ideas ? Suggestions ? |
"swapping the two" will be difficult, but you could always set Linux as your default option in the Windows Bootloader. If you want to keep your windows installation, here's my advice:
Get your hands on partition magic or any other partitioning software that doesn't require you to format. I always use PM, so I have no idea what else is available. Create a ~32 meg ext2 partition to be your boot partition, a ~10 mb FAT partition (trust me, you'll need this if you want to set up Linux to work with the windows bootloader, this is the easiest way. you can also just use a floppy but that can be trickier, this is the most failsafe, easiest way) Then, of course, setup your root partition and your swap partition the way you normally would.
Proceed with gentoo setup using this partition table. After you setup GRUB (use GRUB, LILO is a huge pain in the ass with this, again take my word for it) follow this manual:
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html
You should be set, my man. Beauty of it is, if you follow these steps, you can boot into windows whenever you feel like it. I used this process, as I am at school and don't always have hours upon hours to dedicated to Gentoo installation, so I do it in bits and pieces.
Edit: What you'll end up with is Windows Bootloader will load, and when you select Linux, it'll go to GRUB, where you can setup as many Kernels as you want. I think you can choose to have a Windows option in GRUB as well, if you suddenly change your mind as to what you want to boot 
The little 10 MB FAT partition I advise you to create is what you would use for the of= line of that dd command in the manual. That way, when you boot into Windows, Windows will see that partition and you can just copy the file. |
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:31 am Post subject: |
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| OK, let's say I've installed Grub-for-dos and prepared a couple of linux partitions using PM, I've dowloaded the Gentoo ISOs or a few stage tarballs, what do I do next? (Suppose I have no cdrom or floppy drive. ) |
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DrWoland
l33t
Joined: 13 Nov 2004
Posts: 603
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:42 am Post subject: |
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| kohno wrote: | | OK, let's say I've installed Grub-for-dos and prepared a couple of linux partitions using PM, I've dowloaded the Gentoo ISOs or a few stage tarballs, what do I do next? (Suppose I have no cdrom or floppy drive. ) |
Let's say there's a manual and you should read it? I have no idea what you even want. |
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Jengu
Guru
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 384
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:59 am Post subject: |
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You will probably have an easier time, ironically enough, with linux and windows on the same disk. Use partition magic to shrink the windows partition to leave room for linux, and then burn the live CD, insert it, and get started. I did this for the first time and managed to not format my windows xp partition, I'm sure you can too. It also means no fat partition is necessary (although you may want to make one for easy transfer of files between gentoo and windows -- linux doesn't support writing to winxp ntfs partitions, only reading from them).
The handbook will guide you through using cfdisk to setup your partitions. cfdisk won't make changes to your drive as you go, it will wait until you've made all your choices and then apply them. This lets you double check to make sure you're not accidentally obliterating windows. For extra assurance backup your data (although I'm guilty of not doing so). |
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 11:21 am Post subject: |
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| DrWoland wrote: | | kohno wrote: | | OK, let's say I've installed Grub-for-dos and prepared a couple of linux partitions using PM, I've dowloaded the Gentoo ISOs or a few stage tarballs, what do I do next? (Suppose I have no cdrom or floppy drive. ) |
Let's say there's a manual and you should read it? I have no idea what you even want. |
I'm talking about a harddisk installation method: do you know that you can extract the kernel and initrd image of the install ISO, put the relevant files on a partition that grub supports (including vfat) and then boot this extracted ISO from hard disk and proceed the installation process? This method works well with many other linux distributions (as far as I know many people with windows only machines have installed their first linux this way), but so far I can't get it to work with Gentoo liveCD because it's init (linuxrc) insists on mounting the cdrom.  I think Gentoo developer should modify the linuxrc on the liveCD so that people can choose another way of installing Gentoo directly from their harddisk. |
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cyrillic
Watchman
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 7313
Location: Groton, Massachusetts USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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| kohno wrote: | | I'm talking about a harddisk installation method: do you know that you can extract the kernel and initrd image of the install ISO, put the relevant files on a partition that grub supports (including vfat) and then boot this extracted ISO from hard disk and proceed the installation process? This method works well with many other linux distributions (as far as I know many people with windows only machines have installed their first linux this way), but so far I can't get it to work with Gentoo liveCD because it's init (linuxrc) insists on mounting the cdrom. |
You may be able to get it to work using a version 1.2 Gentoo CD. This one runs entirely from ramdisk, and does not attempt to mount the CD during boot.
http://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/historical/x86/1.2/livecd/gentoo-ix86-1.2.iso |
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robet
l33t
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Posts: 807
Location: Earth/NorthAmerica/USA/NY
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:38 am Post subject: |
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Very good, this one works! But I think there must be some way to get the new liveCDs to work as well. |
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Hauser
l33t
Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 650
Location: 4-dimensional hyperplane
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| Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:58 am Post subject: |
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| kohno wrote: | | I'm talking about a harddisk installation method: do you know that you can extract the kernel and initrd image of the install ISO, put the relevant files on a partition that grub supports (including vfat) and then boot this extracted ISO from hard disk and proceed the installation process? |
This is a good idea! I'll give it a try later.
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AMD Athlon XP 2600+; 512M RAM;
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Do I like to compile everything?
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Hauser
l33t
Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 650
Location: 4-dimensional hyperplane
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| Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:20 am Post subject: |
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Now you can install Gentoo on a windows only machine that has no floppy or cdrom drive.
I've written a how-to here
_________________
AMD Athlon XP 2600+; 512M RAM;
nVidia FX5700LE; Hitachi 120Gb
2.6.9-nitro4, reiser4, linux26-headers+nptl
Do I like to compile everything?
Positive definite! |
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Tamsco
Guru
Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 313
Location: dmse.mit.edu
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| Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:28 am Post subject: |
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Seems to me you would have to do the following:
Re partition your hard drive in windows or with whatever you use to repartition your drives and do the installation using Cygwin. It is a little program that gives you a unix like environment in windows.
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cyrillic
Watchman
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 7313
Location: Groton, Massachusetts USA
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| Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| kohno wrote: | | Very good, this one works! But I think there must be some way to get the new liveCDs to work as well. |
Why bother ?
Using an old LiveCD does not prevent you from installing a fully up-to-date Gentoo system. |
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| cyrillic wrote: | | kohno wrote: | | Very good, this one works! But I think there must be some way to get the new liveCDs to work as well. |
Why bother ?
Using an old LiveCD does not prevent you from installing a fully up-to-date Gentoo system. |
I know, but the new LiveCDs have better hardware support (such as SATA, etc). |
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Dr Gonzo
Apprentice
Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Posts: 276
Location: Austin, TX
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:40 am Post subject: |
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It's not honestly that important how much hardware your live cd handles. As long as you compile the correct support in your install, you should be fine. So long as you have network support and a basic bash prompt, I can't think of any reason why you couldn't install Gentoo. Any form of Unix is fine.
This is why you can use Knoppix or Slax or something similar.
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:47 am Post subject: |
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| Well I'm talking about booting directly from the hardisk from a windows machine that has no floppy or cdrom drive here (please see my previous posts), if the LiveCD kernel image does not support say SATA, how can you even mount the hardisk itself? |
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Dr Gonzo
Apprentice
Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Posts: 276
Location: Austin, TX
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:44 am Post subject: |
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Well, I'm not that familiar with SATA. Is it not backwards compatible with IDE? Please forgive me if I'm wrong, I am still somewhat in the dark ages over here.
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"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
George W. Bush |
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cyrillic
Watchman
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 7313
Location: Groton, Massachusetts USA
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| kohno wrote: | | Well I'm talking about booting directly from the hardisk from a windows machine that has no floppy or cdrom drive here (please see my previous posts), if the LiveCD kernel image does not support say SATA, how can you even mount the hardisk itself? |
If your machine has SATA harddrive(s), but no bootable CD device, you should complain to your system builder 
Besides, how would you install Windows on a machine like that ? |
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kohno
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 112
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| Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| cyrillic wrote: | If your machine has SATA harddrive(s), but no bootable CD device, you should complain to your system builder
Besides, how would you install Windows on a machine like that ? |
Perhaps it's a machine preinstalled with windows and the cdrom is broken!
Just joking, I've seen many requests of this kind from some other forums where people are normally students who don't have cd-burners. They prefer to install linux distrubitions directly from harddisk (usually it's something like a windows+some spare partitions), while you can do that with many other distributions (extract install iso, and then boot the kernel image directly from harddisk) I can't tell them how to do this with Gentoo. That's why I'm looking for answers here. |
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PoDuck
n00b
Joined: 12 Dec 2004
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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| I know this thread is a bit old, but I think that people have forgotten that you can use virtualpc, and I believe vmware and give it control of an entire hard drive. With that method, you could use something like daemon tools to mount the cdrom image and compile and install the entire system without ever popping in a cdrom. I don't know if it is allowed in either of those programs to use the working drive, but if there is a spare hard drive or a partition, it can be done. Also, until you can boot into gentoo, you can allow windows to boot into linux for you, then use grub. |
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Installing Gentoo
