Help an idiot install

[SrManzanas]

Well I'm a n00b at best when it comes to Linux. I want to install Gentoo Sparc on my Ultra V but can't seem to get very far...
When it says this in the documentation:
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Note: When using the CD-ROM, do (this is an example, don't just copy/paste!)

Code listing 4.2

# fdisk /dev/hda
# mount -n /dev/hda2 /mnt/gentoo; cd /mnt/gentoo
# wget http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/build/1.4_rc1/sparc/stage1-sparc64-1.4_rc1.tbz2
# bunzip2 -c /stage1-sparc64-1.4_rc1.tbz2 | tar xvpf -
# cp /etc/resolv.conf etc/resolv.conf
# nano /etc/resolv.conf
# rm etc/make.profile
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I just copy and paste like they said not to because i don't know what to replace it with. I essentially need someone to walk me through the installation. Thanks.

[Timm]

Maybe you should try or more 'easy to use' Distribution like Redhat, SuSE or even Debian? They are also available for sparc.

It looks like you have problems creating your partion(s). Just try cfdisk instead, and don't forget to write the partition table at the end.

The installation process:
1) Boot the machine using the CD
2) Make your network working
3) Prepare your disk
4) mount the partion(s) (e.g)/mnt/gentoo)
5) chroot to the root filesystem
6) Compile your system
7) Download kernel sources through emerge and configure and compile the kernel.
Install grub or lilo as the bootloader.
9) Reboot and continue to compile forever ...

I left out some of the extra steps like loading some modules that you maybe need. Consult the installation document.

[iancurtis]

if i was you i'd mess with redhat for a while and get familar with how things work with linux...then after a couple of months...come to us.
_________________
They say when you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear satanic messages...but that's nothing, if you play it forward it will install Windows!

[s003apr]

Well, you need to understand how your system is different than the example, that's why you can't copy and paste. In actuality, you might be able to copy and paste.

You may want to check out the x86 install guide which is a little more newbie freindly since it's a more common install. There are of course some differences but in many places it might help to fill in some blanks.

# fdisk /dev/hda
[here you are partitioning Your hard drive. If you want to use the first or only hard drive, then hda is what you want, second hard drive would be hdb. After this command you will be using the partitioning tool fdisk. I'm sure there is plenty of documentation out there if you are unfamiliar with fdisk. In addition, you might want to try cfdisk, which is a partitioning tool like fdisk, only most think it is more freindly. You will need to know how you plan to divide up your partitions. Each partition will be represented as hda1, hda2, hda3, and so forth. If you are at all familiar with linux partitioning then you know it is often common for many "directories" to have there own partition. I for example have /boot on hda1, /home on hda3, and / (the root filesystem) on hda2. Since you are a newbie, this probably won't be your last and final install, you might just want to have everything on a single partition. So you could just make hda1 take up the entire drive. The sparc install guide looks like it is geared toward installing linux on a single partition, however, if you compare to the x86 guide you will see an example that uses a seperate partition for /boot]

# mount -n /dev/hda2 /mnt/gentoo; cd /mnt/gentoo
[here you are mounting the root partition you created to /mnt/gentoo so that things can be copied into it. If you are only using one partition named hda1, then you would use /dev/hda1. the command then changes into the newly mounted directory with cd /mnt/gentoo]

# wget http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/build/1.4_rc1/sparc/stage1-sparc64-1.4_rc1.tbz2
[ wget is a command for downloading from the internet. So with this command your are downloading the stage1 sparc tarball. Since you are a beginner, I would recommend a changing this to the stage 3 tarball because you won't have to bootstrap it, but that's up to you. The tarballs are listed here: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc1/sparc/ So you would use:stage3-sparc64-1.4_rc1.tbz1]
If you start with a stage 3 you can skip code listings 4.7 and 4.8 in the guide.]

# bunzip2 -c /stage1-sparc64-1.4_rc1.tbz2 | tar xvpf -
[this is of course unzipping the stage you just downloaded, so if you didn't download stage1, you would replace this with the stage that you used.]

# cp /etc/resolv.conf etc/resolv.conf
[this copies the resolv.conf file that was setup when you setup your networking to your new environment. this file has the IP addresses of your DNS servers]

# nano /etc/resolv.conf
[this step confuses me, Apparently your supposed to edit resolv.conf. if your networking was working then your resolv.conf file should be fine. Besides this step is telling you to use edit the file you just copied from, not the new one you just created. This has to be some sort of mistake in the guide because it is a somewhat pointless step, ecspecially since they don't tell you what the heck your editing!]

# rm etc/make.profile
[apparently you need to remove the file etc/make.profile]


--One thing I feel may not be abundantly clear to a newbie is the difference between /etc/resolv.conf and etc/resolv.conf. You need to understand that you are in a linux environment created by the boot cd. This is however not the linux environment you are creating. When we are mounting the harddrive to /mnt/gentoo we are using it as a space to build our future linux environment. Basically, everything that is in /mnt/gentoo is what will be in / when we actually have our linux system. So, after you switch to /mnt/gentoo and extract your tarball, you will have something that looks like a linux root filesystem in /mnt/gentoo (ie. you will have /mnt/gentoo/etc, /mnt/gentoo/var, /mnt/gentoo/boot, etc... these are the /etc, /var, and /boot that you are building for your future linux system.) So after you #cd /mnt/gentoo and then #cp /etc/resolv.conf etc/resolv.conf, this is the same as saying #cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf