16hrs of installing gentoo and I give up...

stefanwa · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Dec 2002 Posts: 140

Maybe you should have used "emerge kdebase" - it only installs the basic KDE system. You can emerge the rest later.
Also be sure to have DMA enabled for your hard disk. I don't know if it matters that much, but the first time I installed Gentoo I forgot that and I think it took longer than the 2nd time with DMA enabled.

wick · n00b Joined: 27 Mar 2003 Posts: 35

The beauty of Gentoo isn't in the installation. The installation is a somewhat painful experience. After you've done it once, you probably won't want to do it again. In some of our cases, we do, indeed, do it again...and again...and again. Just to cover the different platform boxes we have laying around.

But that's really just the ugly part. The wonderful part about Gentoo is the future flexibility you receive. Let's take an example. So you grind your way through the (painful) X and KDE build. You finally end up with something that works (and yes, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and no, it's not a train.)

A week into running Gentoo you find there's a package out in Internetland(tm) that you'd REALLY like to have on your machine. Let's take some examples of what you just might run into in this scenario, based on the different distributions.

With RedHat, you go out into Internetland(tm) and find the pre-build binary distributed by the author. Then you go to install it with RPM, and RPM yells at you because you have the wrong libraries loaded on your machine. So then you have to go through the task of finding the RIGHT library versions. Once you get THOSE RPMs, you find out that they don't cohabit nicely with the existing applications on your system, so you're forced to do a chained upgrade: upgrading one RPM after another until you end up in a state where most things *seem* to work.

With Gentoo's Portage system, provided the application has already had a Gentoo portage ebuild prepared for it, you type:

Mexico Man · n00b Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 8

Currently 3 days into "emerge KDE" on a Compaq Deskpro Pentium Pro 200 Mhz 96 MB Ram.

Any ideas on an ETA ?

puddpunk · l33t Joined: 20 Jul 2002 Posts: 681 Location: New Zealand

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

my 2.4 Ghz Pent4 did KDE in 3 1/2 hours

a 200Mhz compy will take awhile

paranode · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 679 Location: Texas

ebrostig · Posted: Sat May 17, 2003 12:46 am Post subject:

The problem this character has, is not that it takes a long time to compile KDE but that he did not do any work PRIOR to starting the install. He did not check around to find out what it means installing a source based distribution, nor did he take into account that compiling on a very slow and old machine with limited amount of RAM and slow disks IS going to take time.

I'm sorry my friend, but I fail to have any sympathy with you at all. If you had spent a few hours searching and reading these forums PRIOR to install, you may never have started it since you would have seen several similar threads about compile time.

This is not the distro for you since you are in such a hurry. Gentoo takes time, but you will be rewarded with a system that is working and is as fast as possible on your hardware. From there on updates are a breeze.

Come back when the other binary distros have frustrated you to the point where you see the beauty of Gentoo, until then: Have fun and Bye-Bye!

Erik
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snowdog · Posted: Sat May 17, 2003 3:07 am Post subject:

I gotta agree with ebrostig. KDE took 13 hours on my AthlonXP 2000+, 512MB DDR333. I spent a little time reading the forums here before I took the plunge, and it has paid off (I'm avoiding OOo for a bit, Abiword does what I need). Gentoo is not like Mandrake or others where you are surfing 25 minutes after inserting the first install disk. Now that I have a little better idea of Gentoo I'm going to do a complete reinstall in a few days. Nothin' like a dry run or two to get you set up good.
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SQLBoy · Guru Joined: 17 Aug 2002 Posts: 381

16 hours is it? damn, a full gentoo install with all the bells and whistles takes me about 2 days to compile and get all my apps installed and things setup how I like.

Herri · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 31

Don't forget, there's always the pre-compiled packages on the Live-CD. I used those when I first started using Gentoo, because I'm just so fond of being instantly gratified. Of course, I immediately upgraded to the latest gnome 2.2 (at which then was still a release-candidate) and although I hit some rough-spots during the installation and configuration of various things, I now know much more about Linux and can fix problems a lot easier. Plus, I finally reached a point where I can ditch desktop-environments like gnome and kde (just fluxbox for me, until e17 is useable).

I used to use Mandrake/RedHat before, and I, too, ran into numerous problems. I now realize that my problems were due mainly to two things:

1) RPM dependancy-hell
2) Lack of knowlege of Linux

Thankfully, portage solves #1, and the Gentoo forums solves #2. Also, if you think compiling packages is sucking too much of your time, once you've configured your desktop in a few days, you won't spend so much time compiling anymore (KDE alone is by-far one of the longest compiles you'll ever run into). Now, if I want to test out new software, it only takes the wait of a few small packages. Compare that to a full-blown desktop! Have patience... you will learn the true meaning of Gentoo very soon.

nobleclem · n00b Joined: 13 May 2003 Posts: 27 Location: Michigan, USA

Well I have finally got the KDE installed and now still having problems ... have searched and made posts but still no helpful responses...

SOUND -- not working properly.
I installed alsa to the letter and I dont remember anymore what the first error I got when going into KDE but anyway I am getting "device /dev/dsp can't be opened (Is a directory)"

Also having troubles getting my orinoco wireless card working... to connect to my schools wireless network I have to specify the ESSID..

I edited the first config setting in the wireless.opts and have added the net.eth1 <-- my wireless adapter to boot but the wireless card still doesnt not connect...

If I can get both those working I should be all set and then I can cruse around configuring the system the way I like it but If I cannont get those to work there is no way I can use Gentoo... so far the emerge is really nice...

PLEASE HELP

Mystilleef · Guru Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 561 Location: Earth

Hello,

Ah, so you finally got KDE emerged. With regards to sound, KDE has its own sound daemon called, arts. It works like a charm on my workstation. I'm sure you want to use alsa, but I'm just providing an alternative until you finally figure out how to get alsa working.

Questions:
Did you choose the right features/drivers for wireless network card during kernel configurations?

Did you choose the alsa features/drivers during the kernel configuration?

Also, remember if something is not working right, don't blame Gentoo, it's either you doing something wrong or your box has perculiar unpopular hardware, that isn't widely supported.

Also, try searching these forums, someone might have had a similar problem.

Mystilleef
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bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

Mystilleef · Guru Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 561 Location: Earth

nobleclem · n00b Joined: 13 May 2003 Posts: 27 Location: Michigan, USA

I have started a new thread on the sound as I was hoping to get help from someone who has had that problem but Here is the link to the Thread: Click Here

I did get some help in another thread on my wireless card... a moderator suggested to try to emerge wireless-tools and check out the man on how to config the wireless card with it...
So I guess getting the sound to work properly is all I need at the moment.
It works if I do some wierd way of deleting the /dev/dsp folder and then starting arts ... this is ofcourse with alsa running.

Well Thanks so far...