Before I embark on a Gentoo install...

gentoofication · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2018 Posts: 5

Hi there
I finally got a testing laptop and I'm excited about the prospect of installing Gentoo again, last time I tried it was back in 2004 on an AMD cpu of sorts, took me 5 days with a printed manual and an angry girlfriend

Upon successful install, I'm looking to move away from Arch (love the distro, really dislike the community).
I have a couple of questions, if I may:

1. Will run the install on wifi only and couldn't see if wpa_supplicant is part of the rescue image, if not, will I have another way to connect to my wifi?
2. Installing on a i7 8 core Ivy Bridge, any tips from the gurus on ways to make the compiling faster?

Any tips will be greatly appreciated.
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I'm here to learn, so please be Gentoo with me if I ask a stupid question

Jaglover · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 12:42 am Post subject:

Use SystemRescueCD instead of Gentoo official install ISO. You get a GUI (copy/paste from Handbook cannot be easier) and wireless works. Not sure about your girlfriend this time, though. Faster compiling ... if you got plenty of RAM (8 GB or more) use tmpfs for building.
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gentoofication · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2018 Posts: 5

Thank you Jaglover
Do you mean the 2gig live iso? will try that.
LOL regarding girlfriend, I'm afraid no one could help with that one! she's gone long time ago, Linux stayed!

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I'm here to learn, so please be Gentoo with me if I ask a stupid question

Tony0945 · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:21 am Post subject:

No, Jaglover means this one: http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/Download/

gentoofication · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2018 Posts: 5

Thank you Tony0945!
We need a thumbs up button somewhere

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I'm here to learn, so please be Gentoo with me if I ask a stupid question

gentoofication · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2018 Posts: 5

ali3nx · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:31 am Post subject:

One other useful tip regarding sysrescuecd.

There's a helpful kernel config template in the booted sysrescuecd root directory with all the config options required for uefi bios boot to function.

I've typically done my own kernel configs for years but that kernel config had a chipset driver enabled that was necessary for my skylake workstation I couldn't find using menuconfig. 10/10 would recommend using that config as a template when your considering kernel config options.
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gentoofication · n00b Joined: 25 Mar 2018 Posts: 5

Thanks mate!
much appreciated
_________________
I'm here to learn, so please be Gentoo with me if I ask a stupid question

djentoo · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2017 Posts: 37

Here's a tip.

Set the root password, enable ssh root in config, and do the install remotely. That will probably make your girlfriend happy and then you don't have to troubleshoot problems with wifi. I had wifi problems even with the System Rescue CD. Having the gui there definitely helps speed things up with copypasta.

Target machine:

djentoo · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2017 Posts: 37

Some more things to watch out for...

I've had the most trouble with getting Grub set up right. A lot of it has to do with partitioning incorrectly. If it's UEFI/EFI, make it a GPT label, and format the boot partition as FAT, NOT ext2 like in the handbook. Make sure you follow the GRUB2 parts for EFI. Give enough space for each partition. Another guide I followed suggested a minimum of 200mb for boot, minimum RAM size for swap. I think the Gentoo handbook has a confusing layout on the bootloader page, and it's easy to make mistakes by using the MBR commands.

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:32 pm Post subject:

Better yet, if it's UEFI, forget grub! Install refind in the GPT and tell it to search for kernels in /boot which is ext4/btrfs/ etc. mounted elsewhere. Put as little vital operating files on FAT as possible.

djentoo · n00b Joined: 17 Oct 2017 Posts: 37

Let the biases commence

Tony0945 · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:07 am Post subject:

bammbamm808 · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 548 Location: Hawaii