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666threesixes666
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ubuntu & xubuntu have garbage ware. (ubuntu 1) debian is a little bit more difficult to navigate through on the website than xubuntu. but yes debian will be good to you too. its installer is a little more difficult than xubuntu, but is still very newbie friendly. both use dpkg package management, & synaptic. try it.... or xubuntu > install virtualbox > install debian in virtualbox, install xubuntu in virtualbox, learn gentoo at your own pace. base system up, and running is your main goal right now. virtualization is secondary, installing to virtualization is trinary.
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

666threesixes666 wrote:
ubuntu & xubuntu have garbage ware. (ubuntu 1) debian is a little bit more difficult to navigate through on the website than xubuntu. but yes debian will be good to you too. its installer is a little more difficult than xubuntu, but is still very newbie friendly. both use dpkg package management, & synaptic. try it.... or xubuntu > install virtualbox > install debian in virtualbox, install xubuntu in virtualbox, learn gentoo at your own pace. base system up, and running is your main goal right now. virtualization is secondary, installing to virtualization is trinary.

Can't thank you enough for this great advise!! THANK YOU SOO MUCH :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink:
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gogobebe2 wrote:
666threesixes666 wrote:
arch is just as ugly of an install as gentoo.... listen to ^^^^ i fully endorse you running xubuntu, then virtualizing gentoo, arch, slackware, fedora, & if you like windows 7. xubuntu is very painless and works well. xubuntu was my primary install media for a while, until i found out my laptop doesnt like its video modules. it has hexchat (or maybe xchat) for an irc client. irc so you can chat to people that will tell you gentoo tips and tricks. i wanted to get you on the right track, to make things painless at first, then learn at your own pace from there on. don't give up, its worth the effort in the end.

Thanks so much for helping me on my endevours :) What about Debian? Debian looks nice I am am very keen to try it.


Debian's a great distro, although people complain that the packages are a little old. That's because Debian tests everything to the extreme. You won't find a more stable distibution. I didn't experience a single problem in the two years that I ran it. I personally would highly recommend Debian over ubuntu or any of its derivitives.

I also recommend this installation method: http://www.maketecheasier.com/build-lightweight-linux-for-low-end-laptop/ to avoid bloatware
.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Xubuntu is based on Debian code. It's in the family so to speak. Ubuntu has taken Debian and made it friendlier for new people and easier to get an install that people will actually use.

I notice a whole lot of the same forum people both on Gentoo forums and Ubuntu forums. By that evidence I say that there are a whole lot of people like me: Some boxes I just want to work without a fuss, but sometimes I want to control EXACTLY what goes onto my system and/or how it's built.

@the group: Sorry for the Ubuntu plug, but in the interest of getting this guy on his feet let me get it done:

I use a whole lot of VMs considering I'm in a 4-person business. Usually we're on the clock with installing a VM, so we don't have a day or two (or 40) to get things set up. UbuntuServer it is, in that case. Takes 5 or 10 minutes to install the basic system if you know what you're doing, and then you're installing whatever you intended the box to do. It's almost faster to install from the iso than it is to clone an existing one, if you have the iso handy.

Ubuntu is made by Canonical, it's a company. They use it for their own purposes and they sell support to people who want to buy support. As such it has a more focused approach to a distribution than a traditional Linux distribution. It also has several variants.

Ubuntu itself is the main distro, based on gnome desktop. I don't like it very much because it installs a bunch of junk I'm not interested in, and I never got along with their Unity Desktop for the last couple iterations. It's a more windows 8 approach without the millions of icons. People either love it or they don't.

There are also variants like xubuntu (based on xfce desktop) and lubuntu (lxde desktop) and dozens more. Google on Ubuntu Variant and you'll see all sorts of stuff. Some of them are actually supported by Canonical and they use the same software repository (where you download updates from) and others are "clones" the way that Ubuntu itself is a clone of Debian.

I use Xubuntu because it uses the same repository as Ubuntu, the same forum and it's pretty light weight. There's also Lubuntu which is lighter but I think it lacks a couple features I use regularly. You'll figure out which one you like when you start playing.

When I install some Ubuntu variant, I am usually in a hurry and want it to stay stable.

When I put Gentoo on, it seems like I can't stop finding something to tweak or play with. I used to think I knew something about Linux, then I installed Gentoo. I'm 47 but my reaction to Gentoo is the same as it would have been had I been 10 years old and I was suddenly put into a room full of all the things my Mom told me not to do, without supervision. Nobody is telling you to do something a certain way, or to do it at all. You build the system the way you want it, not the way somebody else wanted it.


Last edited by 1clue on Fri Oct 11, 2013 5:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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eyoung100
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A little History of Distributions, as Neddy and I are old school computer buffs :P :roll:
All Linux Distributions have Parents, except 5:
  1. Debian
  2. Gentoo
  3. Arch
  4. Redhat/Fedora
  5. Slackware

These are considered parents for one simple reason:
Each of these distributions are the creators of the Package Management Systems used to Create them, and manage package installs
Definition:
Wikipedia wrote:
In software, a package management system, also called package manager, is a collection of software tools to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner. It typically maintains a database of software dependencies and version information to prevent software mismatches and missing prerequisites.
Packages are distributions of software, applications and data. Packages also contain metadata, such as the software's name, description of its purpose, version number, vendor, checksum, and a list of dependencies necessary for the software to run properly. Upon installation, metadata is stored in a local package database.
Package management systems are designed to save organizations time and money through remote administration and software distribution technology that eliminate the need for manual installs and updates. This can be particularly useful for large enterprises whose operating systems are based on Linux and other Unix-like systems, typically consisting of hundreds or even thousands of distinct software packages; in the former case, a package management system is a convenience, in the latter case it becomes essential.

Another List:
  1. Debian -->Apt(Advanced Packaging Tool)
  2. Gentoo -->Portage(emerge)
  3. Arch-->ABS(Arch Build System)
  4. Redhat/Fedora-->Redhat Package Manager(rpm)
  5. Slackware-->Tar/gzip(Tar/Gzip)

See this Timeline Image, and this List of Children
Some Advice:
Keep Asking :?: 's like you have here, in this and whatever forum for the distribution you choose. Most importantly, Don't be offended when you run into people who are not as nice as us, because their only bit of advice will be READ THE MANUAL, and yes it will be in caps and on fire etc. etc.
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666threesixes666
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you forgot LFS

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

slackware uses tgz packages.

all of them can make use of source compiled binaries.
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eyoung100
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

666threesixes666 wrote:
you forgot LFS

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

slackware uses tgz packages.

all of them can make use of source compiled binaries.


:idea: LFS is built from source, but has no Package Management, therefore, it is not a parent, and has no children, hence not included. .tgz stands for Tar GZip)
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

eyoung100 wrote:
A little History, as Neddy and I are old school computer buffs :P :roll:
All Linux Distributions have Parents, except 5:....


You must be talking about current distros? Or maybe current main distros?

Google history of Linux and you'll find out how it all got started, if you're interested.

There are all sorts of standards about what makes a distro a "parent." In my mind, it's not so much the package manager as the repository and the conceptual model. If you started with "I want it to be like this distro, except...." then you're spawning a model based on something else. If you start with "I want to choose all the packages, download them from the original sources, configure them, decide on my own directory structure, figure out my own way to install it ..." then it's a parent.

Which in my mind makes LFS a parent distro since it does all that. They've chosen that YOU figure out how to install it, because they're not going to help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg
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eyoung100
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

1clue wrote:
eyoung100 wrote:
A little History, as Neddy and I are old school computer buffs :P :roll:
All Linux Distributions have Parents, except 5:....


You must be talking about current distros? Or maybe current main distros?

Google history of Linux and you'll find out how it all got started, if you're interested.


Edited my post to match your line of thought.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@eyoung100, didn't mean to come off as terse.

Package managers are important. They're a critical and often ignored tool. By their nature, I think that they dictate quite a bit about a distro.

It's just that there's a lot that defines a distro, and many of them take one thing from one 'parent' and another thing from another one. It's not just package managers or what software you include, it's methodology and the -- can't think of the word, the charter? manifesto? -- of the distro. What their focus is, what they're trying to accomplish.

Debian is trying to make something super stable and work on the maximum amount of hardware. Ubuntu is trying to make something easy to use and low maintenance. Gentoo is trying to let you do what you want with as few restrictions as possible while still having some sort of structure. LFS wants you to figure it out on your own.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think we're getting a bit off topic.

I for one am impressed by the youngster who started off this thread by asking a lot of the right sort of questions. Keep going, you'll get there. And don't forget to come back to Gentoo sometime, we're definitely not kicking you out.

I hope this thread helped you out, looking over it I see a whole lot of people trying to be helpful, but maybe giving you a bit of information overload.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gogobebe2,

We have had other 13 year olds on these forums, installing and using Gentoo. At least, one user proclaimed his/her 13th birthday here, so you can install Gentoo if you have the patence and the time to learn. If you find Linux fun it helps too.

After Windows, any Linux is a steep learning curve - but you only learn it once. Then just before you know it all, something changes. :)
Gentoo is harder to learn than binary distros as Gentoo is actually a toolkit you use to make your own distro. This means you need to make all the decisions that a binary distro has already made for you. It doesn't matter much that you make some wrong decisions on the way - Gentoo makes it easy to recover too.
You might as well learn now that experience is what you get just after you needed it.

A lot of users finding Gentoo after other distros had praised Gentoo for the helpfulness of support, both on IRC and in the forums and the quality of the documentation.
We will tell you Read The Friendly Manual here and point to a page ... it saves helpers a lot of typing.

You will get lots of different advice here most of it correct - there is more than one correct way to do most things in Linux.

Using a binary distro will help you learn to use Linux but won't help your understanding much.

It all comes down to what you want out of your Linux experience.
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
gogobebe2,

We have had other 13 year olds on these forums, installing and using Gentoo. At least, one user proclaimed his/her 13th birthday here, so you can install Gentoo if you have the patence and the time to learn. If you find Linux fun it helps too.

After Windows, any Linux is a steep learning curve - but you only learn it once. Then just before you know it all, something changes. :)
Gentoo is harder to learn than binary distros as Gentoo is actually a toolkit you use to make your own distro. This means you need to make all the decisions that a binary distro has already made for you. It doesn't matter much that you make some wrong decisions on the way - Gentoo makes it easy to recover too.
You might as well learn now that experience is what you get just after you needed it.

A lot of users finding Gentoo after other distros had praised Gentoo for the helpfulness of support, both on IRC and in the forums and the quality of the documentation.
We will tell you Read The Friendly Manual here and point to a page ... it saves helpers a lot of typing.

You will get lots of different advice here most of it correct - there is more than one correct way to do most things in Linux.

Using a binary distro will help you learn to use Linux but won't help your understanding much.

It all comes down to what you want out of your Linux experience.

Thankyou Neddy I understand completly what you are saying.
1clue wrote:
I think we're getting a bit off topic.

I for one am impressed by the youngster who started off this thread by asking a lot of the right sort of questions. Keep going, you'll get there. And don't forget to come back to Gentoo sometime, we're definitely not kicking you out.

I hope this thread helped you out, looking over it I see a whole lot of people trying to be helpful, but maybe giving you a bit of information overload.

And 1clue thanks.
I am really amazed how helpful everyone is being and I will definitly come back to gentoo. I just want to start off on debian for a bit because I am super new to linux. And I want to develope my experience in a simpiler distro first.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gogobebe2 wrote:
And I want to develope my experience in a simpiler distro first.


& lack of control will bring you back sooner or later. when you start to out grow it you will see your self wanting. gentoo you can install multiple versions of packages, debian you can not.

"Available versions for amd64:
Slot 5.3: 5.3.27
Slot 5.4: 5.4.17, 5.4.18, 5.4.19, 5.4.20
Slot 5.5: 5.5.2, 5.5.3, 5.5.3-r1, 5.5.4"

ie, some features will be in 5.5.4 that are not in 5.3.27, some bugs will be in 5.5.4 that are not in 5.3.27.... control is key, and you will come back for our highly granular control....
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gogobebe2,

Good luck. See you later
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
gogobebe2,

Good luck. See you later

ty :wink:
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 13, 2013 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, good luck and l8ter m8. :D

I'm sorry to see you leave for now, because choosing Gentoo as your first distribution and wanting to learn seemed like the right decision to me. :(
Pity you got recommended away by some - although meaning well I'm sure. :/

For what it's worth, here'S my take on helping you with the partitioning:

As was explained before, partitioning is like dividing a large room into several smaller rooms.
Depending on what you need the rooms for, they need to be smaller or bigger.

Consider you're living alone in the house with the big room - the pantry will probably relatively small, because you don't need to store that much food. Similarly, you probably won't need that many different kernels at the same time, so that makes one small room for storing kernels:

Partition number 1: Several MB - I use 100MB on the machine I'm writing this on

When working on some project, you might find yourself in need of more room than your workshop (i.e. RAM) provides and you need some storeroom where you can temporarily put stuff. Depending on how big your workshop is, you'll need more or less temporary space (i.e. Swap). On my laptop with 8 GB of RAM, there's hardly ever anything in the swap partition (well, I'm using a swap file, but that doesn't matter here), so I could probably get away with the 512MB the handbook recommends. Personally, without any deeper foundation than my own experience, I recommend 2 to 4 GB or the same amount as your RAM, if you want to use "hibernation", i.e. writing all the RAM's content to disk, switching the computer off and resuming where you left off after the next start.

Partition number 2: 2 - 4 GB or amount of RAM to enable hibernation

At this point, the room in a house metaphor gets a little strained, because I can't think of anything the root of a Linux installation. It might be thought of as the plumbing, heating and everything else that makes a house distinct from a mere concrete box. Now, some people have no problem with having pipes and the heating system, oil tanks and whatnot in the same room where they are living in. This is like having one partition for your home and root file system together. There's nothing really bad about this, but it is harder to change the heating system, plumbing etc. without touching your private stuff such as images, videos and so on. But I guess there are enough people doing this. This is tantamount to:

Partition number 3: all the rest

Most people I know, however, have a boiler room and suchlike, and a private room/ living room, so they can change the boiler or whatever without having to worry about anything in their living room. In your partition scheme, this would mean one partition each for root and home.

Partition number 3: for root - all programmes (except those you install in Wine - a programme that lets you use (some) Windows programmes on Linux), system wide settings etc. reside here. I recommend at least 40 GB but it is really up to you. If you do not install many programmes and nothing big you can get away with a lot less. But since running out of space on the root file system results in a lot of problems, better be save than sorry. If you find out that your initial root partition is too big you can always resize it later.

Now, all the rest there is should go to your home partition - your living room, where you store all your images, videos, local settings, programmes installed via Wine, writings, code, whatever else.

Partition number 4: all the rest


So much for the theory - I hope it's understandable.

Now the practical issues - partitioning the disk using a partitioning tool.
Probably the easiest way is using gparted that is part of almost every live distribution out there. So if you have a Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, SystemRescueCD live medium, boot it up and start "gparted". You won't have to mess with sectors, cylinders and stuff like that (you don't have to in the CLI tools, neither, since they accept sizes in MB and GB, too).
The programme is really easy to use - start it, choose the device (probably /dev/sda - probably also the only one showing up if you only have one HDD) you want to partition, choose partion → new. It is really rather self explanatory. Since we're using only 3 to 4 partitions, you can choose "primary" for all of them.

Alternatively, use one of the CLI tools (parted, gdisk, fdisk) - since I don't often use parted and think it's commands are a bit unintuitive, here's an example for (g)fdisk, taken pretty much from the handbook:

Code:

fdisk /dev/sda

Command (m for help): n
Command action
  e   extended
  p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-3876, default 1): (Hit Enter)
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-3876, default 3876): +32M


Now, what you're doing here is
1. issuing the command n → create a new partition and set its number to one (after finishing the partitioning, this partition will now show up as /dev/sda1)
2. choosing p → primary partition
3. not bothering with cylinders, just use the default and fdisk chooses the first available cylinder as the starting point for your 1st partition. I've never used anything else but the defaults, so just hit enter here.
4. not bothering with cylinders for the second time but telling fdisk the size of your partition in MB in the format +SizeM (like fdisk tells you to do if you don't want to name a cylinder as the end) → choose your size. In the example a 32 MB partition is created. +100M would create a 100 MB partition, +2048 M would create a 2048 MB (=2 GiB) partition and so on.
(5. you might be asked for a partition type. Use 83 for all partitions (i.e. Linux partition) except swap, which is 82.)

Repeat the steps for 1 - 5:
1. n, 2 (second partition)
2. p
3. enter
4. +2048M (for a swap partition of 2048MB - adjust to your needs)
5. t (choose partition type - this would be 82 for Linux Swap)

Repeat 1 - 5 for your other partitions.
For the fourth partition (home partition) you can don't need to enter a size but can go with the default (hit enter), which will be all the rest.

You can now follow the handbook to create file system on these empty partitions respectively activate swap on /dev/sda2
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Clad in Sky wrote:
Yes, good luck and l8ter m8. :D

I'm sorry to see you leave for now, because choosing Gentoo as your first distribution and wanting to learn seemed like the right decision to me. :(
Pity you got recommended away by some - although meaning well I'm sure. :/

For what it's worth, here'S my take on helping you with the partitioning:

As was explained before, partitioning is like dividing a large room into several smaller rooms.
Depending on what you need the rooms for, they need to be smaller or bigger.

Consider you're living alone in the house with the big room - the pantry will probably relatively small, because you don't need to store that much food. Similarly, you probably won't need that many different kernels at the same time, so that makes one small room for storing kernels:

Partition number 1: Several MB - I use 100MB on the machine I'm writing this on

When working on some project, you might find yourself in need of more room than your workshop (i.e. RAM) provides and you need some storeroom where you can temporarily put stuff. Depending on how big your workshop is, you'll need more or less temporary space (i.e. Swap). On my laptop with 8 GB of RAM, there's hardly ever anything in the swap partition (well, I'm using a swap file, but that doesn't matter here), so I could probably get away with the 512MB the handbook recommends. Personally, without any deeper foundation than my own experience, I recommend 2 to 4 GB or the same amount as your RAM, if you want to use "hibernation", i.e. writing all the RAM's content to disk, switching the computer off and resuming where you left off after the next start.

Partition number 2: 2 - 4 GB or amount of RAM to enable hibernation

At this point, the room in a house metaphor gets a little strained, because I can't think of anything the root of a Linux installation. It might be thought of as the plumbing, heating and everything else that makes a house distinct from a mere concrete box. Now, some people have no problem with having pipes and the heating system, oil tanks and whatnot in the same room where they are living in. This is like having one partition for your home and root file system together. There's nothing really bad about this, but it is harder to change the heating system, plumbing etc. without touching your private stuff such as images, videos and so on. But I guess there are enough people doing this. This is tantamount to:

Partition number 3: all the rest

Most people I know, however, have a boiler room and suchlike, and a private room/ living room, so they can change the boiler or whatever without having to worry about anything in their living room. In your partition scheme, this would mean one partition each for root and home.

Partition number 3: for root - all programmes (except those you install in Wine - a programme that lets you use (some) Windows programmes on Linux), system wide settings etc. reside here. I recommend at least 40 GB but it is really up to you. If you do not install many programmes and nothing big you can get away with a lot less. But since running out of space on the root file system results in a lot of problems, better be save than sorry. If you find out that your initial root partition is too big you can always resize it later.

Now, all the rest there is should go to your home partition - your living room, where you store all your images, videos, local settings, programmes installed via Wine, writings, code, whatever else.

Partition number 4: all the rest


So much for the theory - I hope it's understandable.

Now the practical issues - partitioning the disk using a partitioning tool.
Probably the easiest way is using gparted that is part of almost every live distribution out there. So if you have a Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, SystemRescueCD live medium, boot it up and start "gparted". You won't have to mess with sectors, cylinders and stuff like that (you don't have to in the CLI tools, neither, since they accept sizes in MB and GB, too).
The programme is really easy to use - start it, choose the device (probably /dev/sda - probably also the only one showing up if you only have one HDD) you want to partition, choose partion → new. It is really rather self explanatory. Since we're using only 3 to 4 partitions, you can choose "primary" for all of them.

Alternatively, use one of the CLI tools (parted, gdisk, fdisk) - since I don't often use parted and think it's commands are a bit unintuitive, here's an example for (g)fdisk, taken pretty much from the handbook:

Code:

fdisk /dev/sda

Command (m for help): n
Command action
  e   extended
  p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-3876, default 1): (Hit Enter)
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-3876, default 3876): +32M


Now, what you're doing here is
1. issuing the command n → create a new partition and set its number to one (after finishing the partitioning, this partition will now show up as /dev/sda1)
2. choosing p → primary partition
3. not bothering with cylinders, just use the default and fdisk chooses the first available cylinder as the starting point for your 1st partition. I've never used anything else but the defaults, so just hit enter here.
4. not bothering with cylinders for the second time but telling fdisk the size of your partition in MB in the format +SizeM (like fdisk tells you to do if you don't want to name a cylinder as the end) → choose your size. In the example a 32 MB partition is created. +100M would create a 100 MB partition, +2048 M would create a 2048 MB (=2 GiB) partition and so on.
(5. you might be asked for a partition type. Use 83 for all partitions (i.e. Linux partition) except swap, which is 82.)

Repeat the steps for 1 - 5:
1. n, 2 (second partition)
2. p
3. enter
4. +2048M (for a swap partition of 2048MB - adjust to your needs)
5. t (choose partition type - this would be 82 for Linux Swap)

Repeat 1 - 5 for your other partitions.
For the fourth partition (home partition) you can don't need to enter a size but can go with the default (hit enter), which will be all the rest.

You can now follow the handbook to create file system on these empty partitions respectively activate swap on /dev/sda2

Thank you soooo much! My holidays have ended so I might change back to gentoo next year or the christmas holidays :). Debian looks really nice (better than screenshots I saw on ubuntu) and it's so nice and simple looking. But I do want to learn more about linux and Debian seems too user-friendly and not the best for learning (Well I learnt a bit from installing it like how repositories work, what packages are and how it installs it, a couple of terminal commands and some different directories on the linux system) and I think I can learn a lot more if I had gentoo. I was just wondering, does gentoo work the same as debian, eg: does it have sudo? does it have the apt-get commands? does it use repositories too? And what actually are the differences? Thanks so much btw!
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666threesixes666
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

uses sources, ebuilds, if you want sudo you have to install it.... user friendly, & something to look up documentation with. load up synaptic & get virtualbox.

run virtualbox.... create new & install gentoo into virtual box.... run gentoo as a program to get comfortable with it before actually installing it....

http://www.unixversal.com/linux/gentoo/images/gentoo_vm_boot03.png
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

666threesixes666 wrote:
uses sources, ebuilds, if you want sudo you have to install it.... user friendly, & something to look up documentation with. load up synaptic & get virtualbox.

run virtualbox.... create new & install gentoo into virtual box.... run gentoo as a program to get comfortable with it before actually installing it....

http://www.unixversal.com/linux/gentoo/images/gentoo_vm_boot03.png

Will do thanks! :)
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1clue
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@gogobebe2,

One thing you'll get a lot of is some pretty intense "brand" loyalty. People love to stay completely faithful to a single distro for some reason.

IMO this is nonsense.

I have several computers either in my personal inventory or at work, several of which run some type of Linux. You choose the distro to match your needs for that system, that's just how it has to be.

It's definitely possible for somebody your age to install Gentoo, but it all depends on what you're after. There's no shame in trying a normal distro like Debian or *buntu or Fedora or whatever.

A more mainstream distro will give you an idea of the way Linux generally works, and using several distros will give you an idea of what makes a distro different from another one. Learning Gentoo will give you a much better understanding of how it all gets put together, and how it really works.

That said, I'm not really an advocate of total immersion. Starting with Gentoo is like jumping in at the deep end to learn to swim. You'll either learn to swim or you'll die trying. I'd rather have you stay with Linux and try Gentoo at some future date than try -- possibly unsuccessfully -- to install one of the more difficult distros out there, than give up and go back to Windows.

Good luck, whatever you decide.
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

1clue wrote:
@gogobebe2,

One thing you'll get a lot of is some pretty intense "brand" loyalty. People love to stay completely faithful to a single distro for some reason.

IMO this is nonsense.

I have several computers either in my personal inventory or at work, several of which run some type of Linux. You choose the distro to match your needs for that system, that's just how it has to be.

It's definitely possible for somebody your age to install Gentoo, but it all depends on what you're after. There's no shame in trying a normal distro like Debian or *buntu or Fedora or whatever.

A more mainstream distro will give you an idea of the way Linux generally works, and using several distros will give you an idea of what makes a distro different from another one. Learning Gentoo will give you a much better understanding of how it all gets put together, and how it really works.

That said, I'm not really an advocate of total immersion. Starting with Gentoo is like jumping in at the deep end to learn to swim. You'll either learn to swim or you'll die trying. I'd rather have you stay with Linux and try Gentoo at some future date than try -- possibly unsuccessfully -- to install one of the more difficult distros out there, than give up and go back to Windows.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

I might just go with what 3sixes said and use debian but try gentoo on virtal box (I might even try others on virtual box too. Like mint (That looks nice :D))
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i had to try gentoo like 10 times to get it to work, you can try it repeatedly under virtualbox at no expense, or anxiety of needing a working system, since you already have a working system.

"Starting with Gentoo is like jumping in at the deep end to learn to swim. You'll either learn to swim or you'll die trying. I'd rather have you stay with Linux and try Gentoo at some future date than try -- possibly unsuccessfully -- to install one of the more difficult distros out there, than give up and go back to Windows. "

exactly.... you can also install windows under virtualbox in case you miss it... (mac osx too if your a total unix god) in my honest opinion, linux's greatest strength is its a great virtualization host. lots of web people host their websites in virtual machines, because its easy to roll back to working states of virtual machines, and easy to make backups.
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1clue
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gogobebe2 wrote:
I might just go with what 3sixes said and use debian but try gentoo on virtal box (I might even try others on virtual box too. Like mint (That looks nice :D))


I think that's a good call. Nine sixes seems to have pretty much the same opinion about it that I do.

Oddly enough, the first time I installed Gentoo it took a few tries to get a kernel to compile, but I had great help from Neddy and Pappy, and got it to go in one weekend. The next Gentoo box I tried took an embarrassingly high number of tries, and I couldn't attach a number to that if I wanted to, which I don't. I was convinced I could do it without asking any questions, and I had made some really bad guesses as to what hardware was in there. Third box was only a couple tries.
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gogobebe2
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

666threesixes666 wrote:
i had to try gentoo like 10 times to get it to work, you can try it repeatedly under virtualbox at no expense, or anxiety of needing a working system, since you already have a working system.

"Starting with Gentoo is like jumping in at the deep end to learn to swim. You'll either learn to swim or you'll die trying. I'd rather have you stay with Linux and try Gentoo at some future date than try -- possibly unsuccessfully -- to install one of the more difficult distros out there, than give up and go back to Windows. "

exactly.... you can also install windows under virtualbox in case you miss it... (mac osx too if your a total unix god) in my honest opinion, linux's greatest strength is its a great virtualization host. lots of web people host their websites in virtual machines, because its easy to roll back to working states of virtual machines, and easy to make backups.

I was trying to install WINE on debian. I got the Windows version of Steam and Firefox working :D
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