Can not successfully install Gentoo 2008.0-r1 from live CD

[anton123]

Hi guys,

It seems that the flu that has affected the 2007.0 release has spread over to the 2008.0-r1 release.

I tried the live CD and I attempted to install Gentoo using the graphical installer. Looks like a pleasing tool but for whatever reason fails to successfully install Gentoo.

The install claims that it has successfully finished but when I boot, I get GRUB error #2.

I mean, come on, wtf? I was disappointed by the 2007.0 release and now it happens again? What happened to the quality releases? The 2006.1 release was a marvel in my opinion; even the graphical installer worked at least somewhat better than the new one.

I don't want to give up on Gentoo. I just like it but am frustrated at what the last two releases have brought for first impressions.

When can we get those issues solved properly? I hope the 2009.0 release will be excellent.

[terracotta_shore]

when I boot, I get GRUB error #2.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is this little gotcha.

I hope this helps. If this turns out to be the problem, don't blame the Gentoo devs. Blame the e2fsprogs and/or the Grub devs. It's hitting other distros too.

[pandaxiongmao]

Why are we still using Grub legacy? What's wrong with the latest stable version of Grub?

[anton123]

Based on what I have read it seams that using a different file system is a choice. What would you recommend between xfs and reiserfs? I have at least read that xfs is better than ext. Any guidance in this regard? Thanks

[idella4]

It looks like I've had it happen to me too. It seems it is the latest grub, not a legacy. That's the real disappointment, and worse that it's giving gentoo newbies a hard time.

[terracotta_shore]

Why are we still using Grub legacy? What's wrong with the latest stable version of Grub?

The answer is in the link I posted. We are using the latest stable version of Grub. The trouble is that this is now unmaintained because the grub devs are concentrating on Grub 2, and Grub 2 is not ready for general use yet. It's up to distro maintainers to patch grub if they want to avoid this issue. Trouble is, they have to know about it first. It's already tripped up Fedora 9 and Foresight - I was stung by this when I tried out both. I guess the Gentoo devs didn't know (if indeed they didn't know) because the Gentoo recommended way is to have a separate ext2 /boot partition, which neatly circumvents the issue.

By the way, and before I get unjustly flamed, I am not criticising the Gentoo devs here.

Based on what I have read it seams that using a different file system is a choice. What would you recommend between xfs and reiserfs? I have at least read that xfs is better than ext. Any guidance in this regard? Thanks

Checkout the link I gave. You're OK with ext3 so long as you have 128-byte inodes. You can specify this with:

Code: Select all

mkfs.ext3 -I 128 /dev/sda1

or whichever partition it is you are formatting. Or you can set up a separate ext2 /boot partition and not worry about how many bytes your / partition inodes have.