A few questions before switching over to Gentoo...

Message

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:37 pm

Well, I always wanted to try out Gentoo and here I am

I've always heard that Gentoo is built from source while the screenshot from the LiveCD shows shortcuts to a normal GUI install and a terminal install, does that mean the install is like other distros, Ubuntu for example? I want to build Gentoo fully from source.
I don't know if it's true but if you build something from source, generally it will be more stable because it is suited for your hardware or something, so is it true?
Since I want to build it from source, is it possible to do so with KDE? I want to build Gentoo from source including building KDE and Openoffice, compile time isn't a problem since I got tons of time, and enough RAM...

So basically; I want to build Gentoo from source, with KDE, and not GNOME, and including compiling everything possible, because I think it will make Gentoo more stable etc. Where do I start

Sorry for the very long post but I have high hopes of a reply.

Thanks!

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:57 pm

Yes, you can compile everything from source. Just do a normal stage 3 installation (follow the handbook), and then do emerge -eav system. That will recompile everything that the stage3 had prebuilt. Everything you install after extracting the stage3 tarball will be built from source by you. You can do this with KDE, openoffice, and any package in the portage tree.

No, the install will not be like other distros. The installers are buggy and rarely work. So follow the handbook instead.

And don't go wild with the optimizations. When you get to the part where you set the CFLAGS, follow the Gentoo Wiki's safe CFLAGS recommendations. You asked about stability. Over-optimizing will almost definitely cause instability, so don't do it.

Of course, these are just my recommendations. You can do anything you want with Gentoo.

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:03 pm

Thanks for the quick reply, the tips and the links, they seem extremely useful

Can't wait to try out Gentoo. General screwup here so stability is top priority

Maybe sound n00b but what exactly is a stage 3 install, does that mean theres a stage 1, stage 2, stage 5 install?

ferg · Post by **ferg** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:31 pm

You used to generally install from a stage 1 which was a tarball with the absolute minimal needed to compile something. Then you used that as a base to install more applications. However, starting from this point does take a lot of time (days!). A Stage3 tarball has more or less everything you need for a working system already in binary form. It appears that using Stage1 and 2 are no longer recommended, and straight from stage3 is the way to go. So I guess stage 1and 2 are now just legacy names,

Cheers
Ferg

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:45 pm

Oh ok, thanks for the insight ferg

Just another question xD
I found the stage 3, but theres the 2008 beta and 2007. Which one is more stable since it sounds like 2008 beta sounds good enough...
Also, what's the difference between the hardened and normal stage 3 tarballs? And if it's only ~110MB, what's not included? I'm guessing stuff like the Desktop Environment and other GUI stuff is not...
It is also in a tar.bz2 file, sorry but I;ve only had experiences from Live CDs so how exactly would I install it?

Sorry for the never-ending questions xD

Thanks!

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 9:53 pm

TidusBlade wrote:Oh ok, thanks for the insight ferg

Just another question xD
I found the stage 3, but theres the 2008 beta and 2007. Which one is more stable since it sounds like 2008 beta sounds good enough...
Also, what's the difference between the hardened and normal stage 3 tarballs? And if it's only ~110MB, what's not included? I'm guessing stuff like the Desktop Environment and other GUI stuff is not...
It is also in a tar.bz2 file, sorry but I;ve only had experiences from Live CDs so how exactly would I install it?

Sorry for the never-ending questions xD

Thanks!

Follow the handbook from the beginning, you'll get to the part where you extract the tarball. It should be something along the lines of tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2

As for which one, I would assume the 2008 one is as stable as the old 2007.0 one. Gentoo has rolling releases, so using the latest one should just mean that you will have less to update.

tatotato · Post by **tatotato** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 10:00 pm

TidusBlade wrote:Oh ok, thanks for the insight ferg

Just another question xD
I found the stage 3, but theres the 2008 beta and 2007. Which one is more stable since it sounds like 2008 beta sounds good enough...
Also, what's the difference between the hardened and normal stage 3 tarballs? And if it's only ~110MB, what's not included? I'm guessing stuff like the Desktop Environment and other GUI stuff is not...
It is also in a tar.bz2 file, sorry but I;ve only had experiences from Live CDs so how exactly would I install it?

Sorry for the never-ending questions xD

Thanks!

Yes, the desktop environment is not included. What you need to do with the stage3 is emerge the packages you want after the install, making sure you use appropriate USE flags (which are a key feature if gentoo). More information on USE flags can be found here.

Oh, and never-ending questions are fine by me

cyblord · Post by **cyblord** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:45 am

Gentoo: best distro to customize your system according to your needs, and your hardware. It's like a linux bootcamp

ferg · Post by **ferg** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:00 am

Hi,

Regarding the beta status of that installer. As far as I understand it it's regarding the Installer and not the system it installs.

Gentoo has two levels, stable and unstable. Unstable really just means that it's been in the system for less time, and so has not gone through the same level of testing that the stable builds have. You'll also find that, as a rule of thumb, large packages take longer to emerge(sic!) from unstable to stable than smaller packages. I guess to the larger amount of testing they need.

You used to set a system wide variable to decide whether you need unstable or stable. However, this is deprecated( I think) in favour of a per package variable (far more flexible).

To be honest it's nothing you need to even consider until you've been running a while. But I thought I'd mention regarding that beta installer name.

Good luck.

Cheers
Ferg

yngwin · Post by **yngwin** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:28 am

Indeed, just use the 2008.0_beta1 stage3 and you will end up with a stable Gentoo system. If you use 2007.0 (or earlier) or hardened, you're looking for trouble...

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 12:45 pm

Thanks ShinyThings, tatotato, cyblord, yngwin and ferg again

Should be ready to switch now!

Follow the handbook from the beginning, you'll get to the part where you extract the tarball. It should be something along the lines of tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2

I know how to extract it, just that I've never experienced installing a distro from a tar.bz2
Should I boot from some type of Live CD and do it? Should I do it from my current distro? Because at the moment I'm dual booting XP and Linux Mint, and I just want Gentoo and XP, so is there any way to delete Linuc Mint, reformat my ext3 partition and then install Gentoo stage 3 from the tarball?

Sorry for the n00b question, and Thanks

cwr · Post by **cwr** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:15 pm

If you've already got Linux running on the hardware, I'd be inclined to leave it
alone until you've got a bootable Gentoo installed - it'll be a lot simpler than
using a Live CD. It just means working out which partitions to reformat in
which order; and if you get it wrong, you can always go back to using a
Live CD ...

I tend not to bother compiling the basic Stage 1 and 2 stuff, but just emerge
the binaries as Stage 3 and compile everything from there on. The general
view seems not to build (emerge) OpenOffice yourself; apparently it's a bit
of a pig to compile. Just emerge the appropriate binary packages.

Good luck - Will

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:36 pm

TidusBlade wrote:Thanks ShinyThings, tatotato, cyblord, yngwin and ferg again
Should be ready to switch now!
Follow the handbook from the beginning, you'll get to the part where you extract the tarball. It should be something along the lines of tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2
I know how to extract it, just that I've never experienced installing a distro from a tar.bz2
Should I boot from some type of Live CD and do it? Should I do it from my current distro? Because at the moment I'm dual booting XP and Linux Mint, and I just want Gentoo and XP, so is there any way to delete Linuc Mint, reformat my ext3 partition and then install Gentoo stage 3 from the tarball?

Sorry for the n00b question, and Thanks

Oh, in that case, you can install from your current distro if you like, provided that you are installing to a different location. That is to say, you can't (well, at least shouldn't attempt to) install over your current system from the current system.

If you plan to install over your current system, use a liveCD. Any linux liveCD will do, assuming it is for the correct architecture (ie an x86 install will require an x86 liveCD and an x86-64 will require an x86-64 (aka amd64) liveCD). I would recommend the Gentoo minimal CD, since the handbook is targeted at people using it. It's also a very small download.

BTW, to install openoffice from a binary package, you just emerge openoffice-bin. Some other packages have binary equivalents like this as well.

tatotato · Post by **tatotato** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:58 pm

you can install from a liveCD, usb, or anything that you want, be creative

All you need is some way of partitioning the disk, and extracting the stage tarball onto it.

For example, boot off a linux livecd with some partitioning tools, plug in a USB with the stage3 tarball on it, extract the stage3 tarball onto the partition, extract the portage tarball onto the partition (see here), run grub-install and you should be good to go.

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:19 pm

Thanks everyone!

I'm pretty sure I get it now, just finished backing up my files, so Ill just use this handy disc I keep around to run Paragon Partition Manager from a CD and reformat my current only ext3 partition to make a new one, then boot into the Gentoo minimal Live CD and extract the tarball according to the instructions

cyblord · Post by **cyblord** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:14 pm

Have fun! Let us know how it went afterward.

TidusBlade · Post by **TidusBlade** » Fri May 02, 2008 7:37 am

Just emerged and set up KDE, and everything's perfect

System seems much faster and more responsive so that's good too. Just had to emerge quite some big packages, currently compiling qt4, it's taking forever -.- But other than that, just got a few minor annoyances I hope to iron out in the coming days.

Thanks everyone