Is there a SIMPLE way to install Gentoo?

omfg I just looked at(well actually I read through the entire thing) the installation guide and its like 20 pages long with all these commands you have to enter. Now, maybe i was spoiled by Mandrake's relatively automated installation, but this is just ridiculous.

Even with their so called "stage 3" install type, theres tons of stuff. Are there any programs or scripts out there that can simplify the process?

I have just finished installing Gentoo with the stage 2 install. It is very beneficial to do the install this way IMHO. I learned so much more than with any of the other distro's installation.

I even got my wireless working right after installation.

It took a while, but it is worth it if not just for the learning experience. Typing all of the commands, and taking the time to learn what they mean will really help you in all aspects of the Linux OS.

Looks like I will be sticking with Gentoo for a long while. I learned a lot just by installing. Now to configure the rest.

Prodigious said:

omfg I just looked at(well actually I read through the entire thing) the installation guide and its like 20 pages long with all these commands you have to enter. Now, maybe i was spoiled by Mandrake's relatively automated installation, but this is just ridiculous.

Even with their so called "stage 3" install type, theres tons of stuff. Are there any programs or scripts out there that can simplify the process?

Click to expand...

Hi

You may wann try Vidalinux. It is based on Gentoo and it has a gui installer

The first few times you look at the documentation for installing gentoo it seems huge. The reason it seems huge is because they explain everything in detail. If you take a look at the quick install guides, you'll see that there really isn't much to do there, it just seems like it with all the details there. But in the end it's all worth it.

May I ask a lateral question? Why do you want to install Gentoo?

If it's something you just want to try, I would find a friend with it and try theirs.

If it's for all the benefits you've heard that it has (which it does IMO) then the learning process of the install is the path to those benefits.

If it's to learn linux, you've come to the right place, very few flavors of linux will force you to learn as much just to get it installed.


Don't get me wrong, I DON'T want to scare you away from gentoo. There is nothing really deep and mysterious about the install, or linux in general. I love gentoo, it's wonderfully individual and well worth the time and effort it takes to install.

Oh yeah, I agree with Suicide Al, use the quick install guides, but keep the big one around in case you need a step explained more fully.

Good luck, have fun, and let us know how it goes.

DWolf

The answer is yes to all of those questions.

My first experience with linux was installing mandrake last night. I heard that gentoo is a much more stable/faster/configurable distro though, and I want those aspects. I also want to start really learning linux, not just doing all the stupid things you can do in windows like browsing the web. And I can't "try it out" because no one I know is really into linux, let alone uses gentoo.

I guess you're right, the installation is part of the learning process, its just that when I read the manual on Gentoo's iste I was like there's no way I can do this. I even took down like 5 pages of notes about what commands and settings to do.

btw, I have the universal livecd already burned and everything, and out of curiosity I booted it up and got up to the steps where you configure partitions(not very far). I opened up fdisk and tried to get a partition tables for my two sata drives. When it comes up, it only says there 4gb on the one drive and then like 2 gb on the other. Both drives are 74gb raptors, one of which has a single partition, the other has 4 paritions, my windows install which is 34gb and the rest are the partitions for mandrake(root swap and home). any idea whats going on?

First suggestion would be to kill a tree and print out the install handbook. I have a copy in front of me now and I've never regretted the time and ink it took

Now fdisk, what command did you type to find out about your disks?
p is the command to show all the partitions which are already there. Is it possible that it was showing you the unpartitioned space available on each disk?

DWolf

fdisk /dev/hd(x)
then the p command
Its not showing unpartitioned space because I know i'm using all the space on both drives.

btw, i'll probably print out the manual at school(I'm not wasting my paper and ink ) on monday. How many pages total is it?

oh **** lol I just realized what the problem is. It was reading my cd's.

It was 4,something for my blank dvd-r and a few megabytes for the livecd.

I typed hda, but I just realized that for sata drives you have to type sda/b/c etc! Ok, major hurdle one accomplished, lol time to see what other problems await...

I printed out the Gentoo Linux/x86 Handbook which includes the install plus a section on working with gentoo (which I have used several times) and it was 103 pages. Looks like the install section by itself would only be 63 pages.

DWolf

Another reason I like having it printed out, is that I use the blank backs of the pages to scribble notes to myself when I figure out what setting works best for me.

DWolf

I would try Gentoo on my system, but I just got Mandrake 10 working decently, with the 2.6.10 kernel and ndiswrapper for wireless. I don't really have the time to install Gentoo. I tried to install it one time, but it didn't like my computer and messed up.
DWolf, that is a good idea with the manual, though.

Prodigious said:

omfg I just looked at(well actually I read through the entire thing) the installation guide and its like 20 pages long with all these commands you have to enter. Now, maybe i was spoiled by Mandrake's relatively automated installation, but this is just ridiculous.

Even with their so called "stage 3" install type, theres tons of stuff. Are there any programs or scripts out there that can simplify the process?

Click to expand...

2005.0 should have a GUI based installer. Not sure when its comming out, but sometime soon.

A stage 3 install from knoppix is not very hard at all. You can copy over all the config files from knoppix, and use pacakges for KDE or what ever window manager you choose. It almost defeats the purpose of Gentoo by doing it this way, but I have done it before on slow hardware that I did not want to compile on.

If you read the dirrections and follow them closely you will not have any problems. Its harder than it looks, and most often the reason for failure is due to a typo or a missed command in the guide.

There are other gentoo based CDs, but none are as good as the real thing.

{PMS}fishy said:

2005.0 should have a GUI based installer. Not sure when its comming out, but sometime soon.

Click to expand...

<is looking forward to ^

Quite honestly Prodigious, just try it out. I did and am very happy I did, I learned something even though I failed twice. I currently do not have a gentoo install but will definately install as soon as the installer gets a tad simpler for a guy like me. It's not all that hard to understand if you read completely and if you are confused, visit the VERY helpful gentoo irc channel or the forums. Good Luck! Remember, you can always restart/redo whatever, and if you find someone nice enough, you might be able to have someone install the entire thing over SSH for you.

{PMS}fishy said:

If you read the dirrections and follow them closely you will not have any problems. Its harder than it looks, and most often the reason for failure is due to a typo or a missed command in the guide.

Click to expand...

Typos are the big problem while installing Gentoo. Just remember that 0 is not the same thing as o or O. Just pay close attention to your typing and your reading and you should do just fine and try not to be put off, if it takes a few times before you get it right.

For any who want the speed of Gentoo and the simple install of say......Fedora (or any other wicked easy distro of choice), Yoper and Vidalinux are both great.

Vidalinux (as mentioned above) is actually a modified Gentoo with a gui installer and it is very easy and nearly as fast. If you like gnome you are good to go; if you prefer kde you have to do a bit of work to get it installed, but nothing major.

But the Gentoo install really is as bad as it seems.

On the good side, you learn it and get the hang of things pretty quick by the time it is running.
I actually think it saddens me that Gentoo is going to a simpler installation routine!

You can always just install VidaLinux. It's based on Gentoo. Just changed slightly. It has a GUI installer that's simple as hell and it still uses the portage system.

I might have to give VidaLinux a look. I presume that if it uses portage, you could update your compile optimizations in make.conf and do a emerge --newuse -uD world to recompile and optimize everything....

does gentoo have a built in partition manager like suse does, or do i have to use partition magic?

Well, you have to use fdisk or cfdisk that gentoo includes. I don't think either of those can resize ntfs partitions, though.