Gui gentoo installer

[Johnny Who]

I have a dual boot system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu installed. I would like to replace ubuntu with Gentoo. I will be using the live DVD during the installation, and I will erase the ubuntu partitions in order to create new partitions for gentoo. My question is wether the gui installer gives me the option to compile my own kernel or it is just going to use the genkernel instead. Notice that I am confortable with the Linux cli, and I have choosed the live DVD as a faster means of installing the OS.

[gorkypl]

Up to my knowledge, Gentoo has no GUI installer
Also, using LiveDVD is not the best way to install Gentoo, as it won't speed up anything. Because of fundamental differences between software management in Gentoo and Ubuntu, I'd suggest you'd stick to the official installation method.

And going back to your question - there is no preferred method to compile the kernel, you can choose the one that you feel most comfortable with. Most of us suggest to compile the kernel by hand.
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[Johnny Who]

I am talking about the live dvd, not the minimal installation cd. It is described inthe 2008 handbook.

[gorkypl]

Ekhm, it is 2012 now

You are probably viewing the old handbook, the current ones are linked is section 2 of this page:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/
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[Johnny Who]

Ok, but the live dvd 12.1 is still there. I know about that handbook(I `ve read it), but it only describes installation through the minimal cd. I `ll be using the live dvd, and I mean the GTK+ installer. I can` t afford to use the minimal cd because I don`t have internet connection at home, and I will be accessing the net through the library. The connection is slow and it is really tough to configure wlan through cli...

[pidsley]

[gorkypl]

[LiamOS]

If you're using wireless networking to install Gentoo, I'd recommend using the Ubuntu live CD(If you still have it) to install from. As has been said, configuring a wlan interface from a command line isn't massively difficult, but I've had some strange experiences with the minimal CD, as have others I think. Since you're using Ubuntu, you also know that Ubuntu detects everything for you, and you'll have a browser to kill the time while you compile your stuff.
Using an Ubuntu live CD also doesn't significantly change the installation method, and you'll probably know what bits are different if you've been using linux for a while.

As far as kernel compilation goes, doing it manually is far better, but can take a bit of getting used to. If you're not completely sure of yourself, you can copy over the kernel and modules from your Ubuntu installation and get the sources too(Not ideal, but again, you know it works) to use while you get to compiling a working kernel yourself.


Also, if you're emerging and stuck for time, emerge -f is a good friend to have. -f is the fetch only option which just fetches the sources and such, so you can do that, go home and then run the same emerge without -f with no need for an internet connection.
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[cach0rr0]

to clarify one point:

there *was* a GTK+ installer, many years ago (in gentoo terms at least), back in 2008 or so. if that is what you are using, a bit of warning:

even at the time, it was very broken, and we recommended people not to use it
gentoo does not like old installation media (more than ~6 months), and that's for installation media that actually worked correctly back when it was new. For something like the 2008 LiveCD, it is old enough now that as broken as the GTK+ installer was back then, trying to use it today it would be exponentially more broken. In other words, it is old and very broken, please do not use it or you will be hating life! Where some software likes to say "it should work, but please do not blame us if our software catches your computer on fire, or kills your dog", if you try using the 2008 .iso, or worse, the 2008 GTK+ installer, we can change that to "this software is guaranteed not to work, is guaranteed to catch your computer on fire, and is confirmed to be hazardous to pets!"

you can install gentoo from the (current) livedvd; but the procedure is still the same, to go through the handbook
you can install gentoo from the (current) minimal cd; but the procedure is still the same, to go through the handbook
i do my gentoo installs using sysrescuecd; but as you may have guessed, the install procedure is still the same

whatever cd/dvd/usb image you use to boot up, you will still end up going through the handbook to do the install, from the CLI - there is simply no other way (well, the "other ways" are actually more complex than the handbook itself)
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[cwr]

Please do _NOT_ use the live installer from 2008. The 2006 (?) live installer
had a bad reputation, so I avoided it. When the 2008 version came out I
expected the bugs to have been fixed, so I tried it - it tried to rewrite the
partition table (already set up for Gentoo) but crashed before it could
do so.

Several other people reported wiped partition tables, and the project
(possibly for that reason) was abandoned.

You need to pull down a fair amount of data to install Gentoo and apps;
the first two files, a portage snapshot and a stage 3 file, total 180-200 Mb
and get you a shell prompt. However, I re-install Gentoo every 6-8 months
and I''ve found that a full install with all the stuff I use takes around 6G.

(I do each update (around 2G) with some home-grown shell scripts from
a local coffee shop with a fast internet connection.)

Will

[xenobyte]

[gorkypl]

Common experience is that rare updastes may be a pain There are many threads on this forum where troubles come from the fact that that the system has not been updated for a year or so.
The rolling-release distro (like Gentoo) is developed with frequent updates in mind.
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[xenobyte]

[gorkypl]

It certainly can work, but Gentoo is not the best distro for rare updates
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[Clad in Sky]

I can confirm that rare updates can be a real PITA. Depends on what has to be updated, but on one of the computers I'm in charge of I had huge problems several times. It's mainly when libpng, python and xorg are all having a major version change that things can make you wish you hadn't started to upgrade.
I'd go for the emerge -f option. Download all when you do have access to the internet, compile later. And especially when you don't have your own internet connection, do it frequently, so the size of accumulated downloads won't be that big.
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[cach0rr0]

concur with the sentiment about rare updates
but

every 2 weeks or even once a month you:
-go to the library
-sync
-do an emerge --fetch
-do an update online or offline, doesnt matter.

Pretty much once you get everything you want installed, you're in maintenance mode. And this *can* be done with internet access only happening via the library - not all that painful, either. If you don't update for 6 months? Yeah, that can be a PITA, depending on what you're running. But every 2 weeks or every month? No problem.

AND, once you get your system set up and configured, you can toss a network management GUI on the thing if need be, making life much easier for when you return to the library.

As far as getting wireless working, the main pain point tends to be not so much userspace configuration as it does getting the right driver and firmware (if applicable) for your wireless NIC. Once you have that? Yeah, you'll likely have to screw around a bit with wpa_supplicant.conf to get it working if, once you're done with the install, you still want to connect to wireless via CLI. But once wpa_supplicant.conf is set up and working? You don't have to touch it again.

In other words, networking may be painful to get working while you're doing the install, but once you've done your "real" install not so much.

As far as installation media goes, the minimal CD, as you may well have found, doesn't tend to do all that well with wireless.
The LiveDVD is a bit better, but if you're going to be doing an install over wireless, I've yet to find a better option than SysRescueCD - it's a live distro built on Gentoo, so you just boot it and run through the handbook verbatim, just as if you were using "official" CD images.
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[monicajae]

hey this post was just what i needed to answer a question regarding the live dvd. thanks!

[WorBlux]