empty partition when resuming installation, is it normal?

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

Hello, this is my first time installing the Gentoo way, I have the enthusiasm but also feel at a loss with sth specific which I am sure it is trivial but still I miss it. I use a liveUsb stick. I mount the laptop's internal ssd partition where / will be, /dev/sda2 to /mnt/gentoo, I unpack the stage3*tar.gz to /mnt/gentoo, go all the way before the kernel conf and switch off the laptop. I turn it on again and when I remount /dev/sda2 partition where the job was done, it is empty. Is this normal? Ok... now that I think of it... the /mnt/gentoo is in the usbstick, no, it's loaded from the usbstick in RAM... so i mount my ssd, but the actual work is being done in RAM? If this is true, at which point of the installation is it actually writen to the internal ssd?

alamahant · Advocate Joined: 23 Mar 2019 Posts: 3879

Hi
Welcome to Gentoo!

No this is not normal at all.
Most probably you un-tar-ed the tarball inside the livecd and not inside the newly created partition mounted on /mnt/gentoo
And this happened maybe because you failed mounting the new partition on /mnt/gentoo probably because you forgot to format it.Therefore you installed Gentoo on /mnt/gentoo which was NOT a mountpoint just an ordinary directory of the livecd which did not persist the reboot.

Plz post output of
lsblk
after booting into livecd.

Also this is the way to proceed:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue May 04, 2021 9:15 pm Post subject:

babagau,

Welcome to Gentoo.

/mnt/gentoo is a mount point on the boot media, It can be in RAM, its not important.

The important bit is that your embyonic root filesystem is attached to the filesystem tree there.
Any writes to /mnt/gentoo are then to your root filesystem.

If you don't do the mount, everything written to /mnt/gentoo goes into RAM.

Years ago when RAM was usually smaller than the stage3, untarring the stage3 failed but that's no longer the case.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

Just forget about it, it is all there, I wasn’t on drugs, honestly!

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 9:13 am Post subject:

babagau,

That's experience for you. You only get it after you needed it.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

You only get it after you needed it... I really liked this, thank you! I have another issue, probaly for another topic... Now I am browsing the kernel config menu, that’s what I wanted! Seriously scientific stuff! Cant stop pressing the question mark for Help! Really interesting

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed May 05, 2021 7:16 pm Post subject:

babagau,

To quote a post I made a wee while ago ...

Some years ago I wrote NeddySeagoons' Rough Guide to DIY Kernels
Later pappy_mcfae wrote a whole website on the topic.

Both methods are still valid.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

These links are excellent, thanks! Now that im working more on it, the partition seemed empty as i had not set the date beforehand! So it’s date, networking, swapon ... I also work on a desktop pc, there I have proceeded a bit more :-)

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 11:11 am Post subject:

babagau,

After your first install, you will do all the others over ssh.
That's experience and I've told you about that already :)
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

pietinger · Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 11:20 am Post subject:

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

babagau · n00b Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 22 Location: Volos, Greece

Οκ, I had some failed attempts with errors I could very vaguely
find a way through, but I did get a general idea by
I see that kernel building is a very serious thing and I could easily
become obsessed and unfold perfectionism but, I’d rather take
it easy! So
I managed to compile two kernels, by accident, after ticking and
unticking fields, relying on my generic knowledge of the machine
and mostly on the help <?>, and on the handbook.
It was not the time for me to know
what led to the compile errors, so I call my kernels accidental.
errors. I suppose errors can also be a combination of on/off choices.
I have no idea where people usually store and name kernels,
I have em both in /boot and in the first of them I added a zero
at the end of the filename!I will probably try to proceed with the
Installation to have a more useable laptop (will I?) and install a kernel
where I have understood better what I have done, a kernel with a
purpose, a kernel a kernel a kernel is the No1 word in my head in
the last two weeks or so!