Gentoo Forums

My favorite way to install is to install by stage3,
change the CHOST and CFLAGS in /etc/make.conf,
change /etc/make.profile to my favorite profile,
unmask a ton of stuff in /etc/portage/package.keywords
and then while posting on message boards online.
Stage1 is so boring and stable.

For me:

Normal | Hardcore user

Stage 1 | Stage 1/3: waste of time exept for gentoo virgins, nice solution to learn something

Stage 3 | Jackass: the solution!

I chose Jackass. Thanks again Bob P!

Kororaa is a really good, easy stage3 method

First place is, Bob P's stage1/3 guide
Second place is, kororaa
Third place is stage3 from gentoo handbook
fourth place is stage1 from gentoo handbook.
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To me, stage1 takes WAY too long, and it's not really worth it.

Bob P's guide is definitely worth it, it takes awhile, but it's definitely worth it, and it's probally faster than stage1
Also kororaa is a great, easy installation, I like it also.

To add something else to the discussion I have to say that I always have a spare partition for experiments. This means that sometimes I try to emerge Gentoo in a new way, using a different approach. So, instead of Knoppix, etc. I have a normal working environment, and I create a new installation in the background.

The only one "cheat" I've used was to install Ubuntu on my new laptop, in order to untar a stage file on an empty partition... The rest is obviously obvious

stage 1 by handbook

I've grown fond of doing the slightly adventurous thing of installing stage1 directly on ~x86, which is largely untested and wholy unsupported.

playfool wrote:I've grown fond of doing the slightly adventurous thing of installing stage1 directly on ~x86, which is largely untested and wholy unsupported.

I've not had troubles with that method yet.

(Except for an install last year which had a circular dependency problem with OpenSSL/Perl, but it seems like that's been fixed.)

in the past year there have been a significant number of circular dependency issues that plagued ~x86 stage 1 installations. they've come and gone (and some of them like python and perl have come back again and again ).

how many times anyone's likely to have been effected by circular dependencies while performing ~x86 stage 1 installs would largely depend upon how many stage 1 installs they've done during this period, and whether or not their timing was good or bad.

i have performed test installs frequently enough that i've hit every one of them, and they've been a real PITA.

Bob P wrote:how many times anyone's likely to have been effected by circular dependencies while performing ~x86 stage 1 installs would largely depend upon how many stage 1 installs they've done during this period, and whether or not their timing was good or bad.

wow...i've been lucky...i've done many ~x86 stage 1 installs and never had these kinds of problems.

i'm grateful to this thread for opening my eyes to a couple of things. i've only ever done stage 1 installs...came to gentoo specifically because i'm a control freak who wanted to be able to configure everything (but couldn't quite be arsed with LFS, which looked like it would take about a month) and stage 1 was, according to the handbook, the way to do this...so i've never even considered 2 or 3, or anything else.

i was curious about installs because i want to put gentoo on a couple of other PCs on this LAN, and (since one in particular is very slow) wasn't keen on the idea of stage ones (this athlon 3000+ goes from fdisk to fully working graphical desktop in one day, but i'm guessing the same process on the old P2-300 could be verrrrrrry painful). unfortunately, since they're all such different hardware i can't just compile binaries on this one and slap gentoo ready-made onto the others...so i was thinking about cross-compiling etc.

however...now i will take a look at some of the other options discussed in this thread. i agree with what's been said about learning from stage 1 installs, but have to admit that i can't comment on how this learning compares with stage 3 or whatever, since i've never tried them. the news that optimisation only happens AFTER bootstrapping etc. is a bit of a shock...i'm ignorant, and thought there would be something in there that would benefit from compiler options...i'm going to have to take a closer look at the other methods of gentoo installation and see if i can't achieve what i want in much less time.

having said that though...one final comment re stage 1...i happen to ENJOY watching my pc build its own os...so even if it turns out that some of this building is redundant, i don't think i'll be ditching this installation method completely.

simon_irl wrote:one final comment re stage 1...i happen to ENJOY watching my pc build its own os...so even if it turns out that some of this building is redundant, i don't think i'll be ditching this installation method completely.

if you enjoy watching your AMD box build its own OS, then you're really going to "enjoy" watching the OS build on your P2.

bob p's stage 1/3 install with gcc 4.0.2 and reiser4

thinking of using jackass for this though, same results right?? i just create reiser4 partitions to install it on and then follow the steps i usually take to upgrade to gcc 4.0.2

i've got a p4

oh and thanks bob for all your work - my system is fast

Bob P wrote:if you enjoy watching your AMD box build its own OS, then you're really going to "enjoy" watching the OS build on your P2.

heh...yeah...well, i don't actually sit there watching it (much)...by "watching" i meant peeking now and then while surfing with links.

as for the p2...hmmm....i could maybe cope with a week of compilation, but the box is also a tad flakey...and if it were thirty hours into an xorg compile and then crashed, there could be an eruption of violence...

Sir No wrote:I always have a spare partition for experiments.

me too. i also keep partimage (compressed backups of entire partitions) backups of various setups (clean x86, clean ~x86, clean amd64, clean ~amd64, x86 with X, etc. etc.) so that after the initial install for each setup, i can actually do a sneaky bastardised version of a "stage one install" (kinda) by restoring from one of the backups (5 minutes) and then edit make.conf, emerge --sync, emerge -DNu world, cleaning up the inevitable damage or at least until the profile is deprecated. this way i get to play with dozens of different setups relatively quickly and easily.

ok, so there's a bit of pain involved, but gentoo respects my right to suffer appropriately for my own personal level of stupidity...and that's what i love about it

When I first started using Gentoo I did the stage1 install. I realized later that it's not really worth my time doing that and changed to the stage3 install instead. Some experimentation here and there, but mainly I only use stage3 as done through the handbook.

stage1 install by Handbook (or without), have done this for a couple of years so it's the natural way for me .

Stage 1 install...from memory

stage1 install by Handbook mostly from handbook so it eventually will be stage1 install by Brainpower

1 laptop - BobP Stage 1/3 setup
1 laptop - Jackass Project

parents system - Kororaa Binary install

i would have to say all are very nice methods. the first two are definitely my favourite cuz u get into the nitty-gritty

BobP's stage 1/3 setup was my favorite. Lots of information as to why things are done.
Jackass! for ease of install

Rac's method
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-25 ... ight-.html

Cerement wrote:Rac's method
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-25 ... ight-.html

Great! But have you looked at the date the post you've mentioned was posted?
Gentoo developers say those issues have been now resolved...

Stage 4 ( if it´s my Workstation )

or Stage 1

Sir No wrote:

Cerement wrote:Rac's method
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-25 ... ight-.html

Great! But have you looked at the date the post you've mentioned was posted?
Gentoo developers say those issues have been now resolved...

That's what they were saying back when Rac was first testing that method on #gentoo

1.) Fiordland Install

2.) Stage 1/3

3.)Stage 1

The first time i did a stage 1, but as i didn't know how to take advantage of the possible optimisations it was a waste of time.
So today i prefer the quick and dirty method : stage3 with grp

Cerement wrote:Rac's method
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-25 ... ight-.html

well, there are some definite problems with using that approach today, even though the idea was sound at the time that the method was first proposed. but gentoo has changed a lot since then. if you're still using it, you're really, really out of date.

Rac's idea was to use a Stage 3 tarball as a stopgap measure to fix the /var/pkg/db problem until the develpers took care of it in the 2005.0 release. as Sir No previuosly mentioned, that problem was solved a long time ago, and it is only of historical interest today.

although Rac's method solved the problem that is no longer a problem, using it today creates a new problem now that GCC 3.3.x has become obsolete. it is no substitute for bootstrapping because it fails to address the problem of gcc-migration; in failing to address the need to update the compiler, the user wastes an awful lot of time recompiling the system while having forgotten to change the default compiler -- after going through all of the gyrations of rebuilding the entire system the user ends up right back where they started with an obsolete compiler. of course, i solved that problem in that thread over ONE YEAR AGO, and Gentoo has changed alot since then. if you're still using that method, you're hopelessly behind the times.