I've always wanted to install and use Gentoo, ............

[onederer]

I never could get the hang of properly installing it. At my age, I guess that I'll never get the feel of running Gentoo. By the time that the compiling is over, I'll be six feet under. Too bad that Gentoo doesn't provide a version that can be run "live" and also installable. I would really need a mentor to be able to get this running. I have too many questions, and few means to get the answers. I've always wanted a rolling distro, but too many gaps in my knowledge to make this a reality.

I'm kind of leery to ask questions, because I've been flamed too many times for being an old geezer with a short memory.
I don't retain very well what I read (RTFM), but respond and retain very well to questions and answers. Once I've done it, then there is no problem in repetition and understanding it.

Looks like I'll have to depend on Sabayon Linux to get the feel of Gentoo. It makes a pretty good front-end for Gentoo Linux. Sabayon also reminds me of DesktopBSD. That BSD is based on FreeBSD. It is a smooth well oiled front-end for FreeBSD. Too bad that it was abandoned in Sept. of 2009, by it's developer. Any takers to pick it up and revive it?

Yep I got lost somewhere at the beginning of the Gentoo installation, when I was trying to make installation instructions that I read, equal to what I have here. My setup is that I have Win** on sda1, PCLinuxOS on sda2, and ??? on sda3 (external 1TB hard drive plugged into a USB hard drive adapter (toaster)). Each OS has it's own separate hard drive. That leaves plenty of room for expansion. The live DVD had nothing on it that indicated that it was installable, or that it could be used for installation. I got lost with the "minimal install" and what to do with it. I was looking for a command that said "install" or something of that kind. I guess that my masochistic tendencies run on a very low level! I had to walk away.

Cheers!

[John R. Graham]

@onederer, have you even looked at the Gentoo Handbook? From you description of looking around for an "install" command, it doesn't really seem so. Why don't you read that and, if you don't understand something, come back here and ask? There are a lot of friendly folks here who'll be willing to help.

C'mon; I dare you: ask your first question. I think you'll be happy with the result.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[hedmo]

i know what your mean. for you like me i start with the amd2008 livecd.the gtk installer it is not stable.but it should work.this is a good way just to get the gentoo feeling

[Jimini]

I really understand what you mean. I tried my first Gentoo-setup 4 or 5 years ago and it took about two weeks see the prompt of my first own Gentoo-installation. The official installation-guide is a great help to get Gentoo installed, so read it carefully. Don't make your setup too complex - a standard partition-scheme, genkernel and single-boot should be enough for the first steps ;)
And don't be frustrated, if your kernel doesn't want to boot after the installation - that's almost usual. Fortunately, Gentoo has an excellent community, so just feel free to ask for help. Why don't you start here with asking for help? :)

And - of course it takes more time to get some packages installed on Gentoo than on a binary distribution. In my opinion, this disadvantage is more than compensated with the flexiblity coming with a construct named "use flag". Gentoo is not a distribution for people with an allergy against manuals - it is complex and costs some effort to be "mastered". Perhaps now you'll understand why a graphic installer does not really fit into a Gentoo-installation.

Best regards,
Jimini
_________________
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." (H.P. Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulhu)

[Mousee]

[phajdan.jr]

[gerard27]

I'm from 1927.
I use Gentoo to keep my brain exercised and because I got fed up with "point and click" distro's.
The rescuecd in my sig is a very good one for installing Gentoo.
I also use Gimp to enhance photo's I take etc.
As for short memory that's something I'm familiar with.It's what comes with aging.
But one develops tricks to get by.
And don't worry about flaming:The moderators are very keen on that.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

[hedmo]

Mousee wrote: I couldn't disagree more.


i agree with you but if a person want to try gentoo and get the feeling about gentoo it is not the install of gentoo otherwise there should
only be a stage 1 install.please correct if i am wrong .the amd2008 livecd and the gtk installer provides a standard gentoo install with a genkernel and xorg thats all.
it will boot up correctly and leeve you in a console with the login,then you can build your gentoo and try what its all about.the hardest thing in gentoo
for a newbe is the install and the /etc/make.conf file .after that gentoo has the powerful portage that makes it more easy to build your OS


onederer

thats how i started with gentoo but i still use the livecd because it has a graphic Environment and firefox that makes it easy to get the gentoo handbook
via firefox and using a terminal to drag and drop the commands to and doing a kernel via make menuconfig.

[Jaglover]

If you have a dedicated box boot it up with some CD and give me SSH access. I'll install the base system, would be great deal of fun for me. I will not mess with multi-boot.

[krinn]

from krinn:
To: distrowatch
subject: New gentoo livecd release finally with an installer ! codename Jaglover.




There's a difference between

[Mousee]