Can I install Gentoo through Arch Linux?

Message

shaunsingh14 · Post by **shaunsingh14** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:35 am

Hello all. I apologize if this question's been asked already, but forum search returned no results of a thread similar to the one I'm trying to find.

Anyway, I have a Gentoo minimal install CD. I would've used it already, but it was giving me issues with my wireless card (Linksys WUSB54GC v3). I thought I would never be able to install Gentoo outside of VMWare, however, while re-reading LFS-Book-7.0.pdf, I found that the Gentoo stage3 install is somewhat similar to the LFS install because they both involved chrooting and moving away from the main system. The only issue I believe this would pose would have to be GRUB installation, as Arch relies on GRUB, so trying to reinstall GRUB might pose an issue.

Here's a summary of what I want to do:
-> Install Gentoo on a blank partition that exists on my hard drive using Arch Linux as the host system
-> After installing Gentoo, I want to use Arch Linux's GRUB installation to boot into Gentoo Linux.

Is that possible? I've heard of people who managed to get Gentoo installed on their computers using other GNU/Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Slackware.

Back to the issue with GRUB, I've checked the handbook, and it seems that in place of /boot/grub/grub.conf, Arch Linux uses /boot/grub/menu.lst

Here's a wgetpaste of my menu.lst file (wgetpaste = configuration file paste utility in Arch Linux. Very handy, if you ask me): http://paste.pocoo.org/show/572339/

So, what do you guys think? For those of you who have used Arch, do you believe it would be possible to install Gentoo on the same HDD as Arch?

Jaglover · Post by **Jaglover** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:45 am

shaunsingh14, welcome to Gentoo!

You are correct, just install Gentoo from Arch and add Gentoo kernel to your existing GRUB installation.

BillWho · Post by **BillWho** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:20 am

shaunsingh14,

That's how I did it. It's much simpler installing gentoo that way since you'll inherit the devices from Arch when you chroot.

Good luck

shaunsingh14 · Post by **shaunsingh14** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:17 pm

BillWho wrote:shaunsingh14,

That's how I did it. It's much simpler installing gentoo that way since you'll inherit the devices from Arch when you chroot.

Good luck

Did you get Error 15 or Error 17?

Because when I applied the Gentoo entry on GRUB, and I chose that upon startup, it gave me error 15 file not found (hd0,0)

I switched to (hd0,4) and it gave me error 17.

Any ideas?

windscape · Post by **windscape** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:38 pm

shaunsingh14,

I think we need more data to help sort out the grub issue. From Arch, please post the output of:

fdisk -l /dev/sda
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Please indicate which partitions have Gentoo installed on them and which partitions have Arch installed on them.

BillWho · Post by **BillWho** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:41 pm

shaunsingh14,

That version of grub is going by way of the dinosaur

I have a multi-boot setup that's probably a little overkill due to experimenting with different distros. Right now lmde controls my bootup and it's grub 2 so entries aren't compilable. For that reason I don't have grub installed in gentoo or arch. As a consequence, the gentoo and arch entries had to be manually configured in grub.cfg.

It's been quite a while since I setup a grub .97, but if you paste back your menu.list or whatever the file name is along with blkid, that would help.

Here's my grub.cfg if that helps you any

Good luck

shaunsingh14 · Post by **shaunsingh14** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:34 pm

windscape wrote:shaunsingh14,

I think we need more data to help sort out the grub issue. From Arch, please post the output of:

fdisk -l /dev/sda
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Please indicate which partitions have Gentoo installed on them and which partitions have Arch installed on them.

Code: Select all

[root@the-enforcer shaun]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000ab0c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63      192779       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2          192780   100197404    50002312+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3       271601664   488397167   108397752    5  Extended
/dev/sda4       100197405   271601663    85702129+  83  Linux
/dev/sda5       271601727   271794443       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       271794507   275794628     2000061   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7       275794692   325788908    24997108+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8       325788972   488397167    81304098   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

/dev/sda1 = Gentoo Boot
/dev/sda2 = Gentoo Root
/dev/sda4 = Gentoo home

Here's a paste of my /boot/grub/menu.lst -> http://paste.pocoo.org/show/572792/

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:45 pm

shaunsingh14,

Its the famount out by one error ...

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/dev/sda1 = Gentoo Boot 
root   (hd0,1)

These two lines need to describle the same partition.

The root (hd... is grubspeak for the partition where all the files you want grub to load can be found.
Hint: Grub counts from 0, not 1.

BillWho · Post by **BillWho** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:41 am

shaunsingh14,

I think you're looking for the kernel and initrd in the wrong place. Try

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kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/sda2
initrd  /initramfs-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2

Good luck

cach0rr0 · Post by **cach0rr0** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:46 am

combining the two posts above:

did you put your kernel in /
or did you put your kernel in /boot
?

your gentoo entry in menu.list says the following:

-go to /dev/sda2 (hd0,1)
-look for a directory named /boot with a kernel/initramfs named kernel-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 / initramfs-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 (respectively)

however your gentoo entry also says the root partition of your gentoo install is /dev/sda2

so the above would only be correct if the kernel specified above exists on gentoo's root partition (/dev/sda2) in a directory named /boot with the aforementioned name
the "file not found" indicates this is not the case

shaunsingh14 · Post by **shaunsingh14** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:16 pm

cach0rr0 wrote:combining the two posts above:

did you put your kernel in /
or did you put your kernel in /boot
?

your gentoo entry in menu.list says the following:

-go to /dev/sda2 (hd0,1)
-look for a directory named /boot with a kernel/initramfs named kernel-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 / initramfs-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 (respectively)

however your gentoo entry also says the root partition of your gentoo install is /dev/sda2

so the above would only be correct if the kernel specified above exists on gentoo's root partition (/dev/sda2) in a directory named /boot with the aforementioned name
the "file not found" indicates this is not the case

Just had to make two minor changes: 1) switch to hd0,0 and 2) switch from /boot to /

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# (2) Gentoo
title  Gentoo Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /kernel-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/sda2
initrd /initramfs-genkernel-x86-3.2.1-gentoo-r2

Once I did that, it boots

The only issue now is my wireless card (Back to square one).

When I boot into Gentoo via GRUB, it boots but once it does that and I log in as root, I can't run

Code: Select all

# emerge --sync

because ifconfig and iwconfig both return NO wlan0 interface >_<

But that's a different matter for a different thread in a different subforum. Thank you all for your help. I greatly appreciate it.