problems getting into the xserver to isntall

Message

McLovin · Post by **McLovin** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:51 am

I have tried both the LiveDVD and the CD, both 2007.0 on an Acer desktop with an ATI HD2400Pro graphics card, and x fails to start every time, is there any way to get insto x so I can run the installer? do I have to install the STI driver first, and if so how? I know my system can handel it, I have an Intel Core2 duo e4500, 3gigs ram, 1sata, and 1 ide harddrive. any help would be greeatly appreciated.

NathanZachary · Post by **NathanZachary** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:09 am

I'm assuming that you're using the Live discs instead of the minimal installer. Most likely the problem is that the kernel on the live discs is too old to support a piece of your hardware. I would highly discourage you from using the GTK+ installer anyway. Using the CLI installer really allows you to take advantage of the Gentoo experience (by EXTREME levels of customisation). If you are really set on using the GTK+ installer, though, please post any error messages related to X, or provide a little more information about "X failing to start."

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:20 pm

kalos wrote:I'm assuming that you're using the Live discs instead of the minimal installer. Most likely the problem is that the kernel on the live discs is too old to support a piece of your hardware. I would highly discourage you from using the GTK+ installer anyway. Using the CLI installer really allows you to take advantage of the Gentoo experience (by EXTREME levels of customisation). If you are really set on using the GTK+ installer, though, please post any error messages related to X, or provide a little more information about "X failing to start."

The CLI installer is the same as the GTK one, it just has a different interface. Use the handbook.

You can use the minimal CD and use links from the command line to read the handbook. If the framebuffer is available on the minimal cd (I think it is) you can use graphical links (type links -g) and it will be far easier to read. One you are running links, press the 'g' key to navigate to a URL, 'q' is to quit.

McLovin · Post by **McLovin** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:35 pm

ok, i'll try the minimal, it's just saying that x failed to start, but it gives me the command line option, i think I'll just print out the handbook, (i know it's long, but I have plenty of paper) and try to get it installed. If I go into the xorg file and tell it to use the vesa driver, do you think I would at least get a graphical environment? then I can use the console to do the isntall.
out of curiosity, could I use vmware to install it to a hard drive from inside another distro, (I am currently running Mint)?

Post by Hu » Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:52 am

If you have a working Linux environment, then you can install Gentoo from there. The Gentoo CDs are primarily needed to get the machine to boot Linux. If you have some other way of booting Linux, then the CD is unnecessary.

Caution: you need a free partition into which Gentoo will be installed. Be careful not to damage your existing Linux installation until you have a bootable Gentoo environment. That said, you can create a partition, make the filesystems for it, and unpack the stage3 from your existing Linux installation. Then, use chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash to start a shell in the stage3. From there, you should be able to follow the normal handbook quite closely.

If you prefer to use VMware to prepare the installation, you can do that. However, there are some limitations:
- VMware presents emulated hardware that differs from your real hardware. A kernel that boots your machine may not boot in VMware, and vice versa.
- If you store the installation in a VMware disk file, you will need some way to extract those files onto the real disk without booting from the hard drive.
- VMware without hardware assistance is slow to compile programs. Large packages may take 3-5 times longer to build in VMware than they do on real hardware.

McLovin · Post by **McLovin** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:42 pm

ok, I'll try to do that, I have both Ubuntu 7.10, and Mint4.0 installed and I'm triple booting with Vista as well. I want to install Gentoo over Ubuntu, so I'll overwrite that install as I want to use that section of HDD to install Gentoo.
I've never tried to install a distro from within another distro, so I apologize for all the noob questions, but how do I go about getting the stage3 files set-up, do I put them onto the partition that I plan to use for Gentoo, or do I get the stage3 files off the cd and then run it from a terminal?

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:00 pm

McLovin wrote:ok, I'll try to do that, I have both Ubuntu 7.10, and Mint4.0 installed and I'm triple booting with Vista as well. I want to install Gentoo over Ubuntu, so I'll overwrite that install as I want to use that section of HDD to install Gentoo.
I've never tried to install a distro from within another distro, so I apologize for all the noob questions, but how do I go about getting the stage3 files set-up, do I put them onto the partition that I plan to use for Gentoo, or do I get the stage3 files off the cd and then run it from a terminal?

Download the stage3 file and extract it into the Gentoo partition.

McLovin · Post by **McLovin** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:44 am

ok, i got into the xserver, (had to run a bunch of commands and reconfigure xorg.conf) but now what I run the installer, i get an a\error saying that it can't detect my disks, any of them. I have 1 internal sata, 1 internal ide, and 1 ext usb, and the installer says it can't see any of them, but if I open gparted or even go through the file browser, I can see them, mount them, even add content to them, but can't see them in the installer. any ideas?

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:31 pm

McLovin wrote:ok, i got into the xserver, (had to run a bunch of commands and reconfigure xorg.conf) but now what I run the installer, i get an a\error saying that it can't detect my disks, any of them. I have 1 internal sata, 1 internal ide, and 1 ext usb, and the installer says it can't see any of them, but if I open gparted or even go through the file browser, I can see them, mount them, even add content to them, but can't see them in the installer. any ideas?

Install using the manual method outlined in the handbook. The installers are notoriously buggy.