Installing gentoo from ISO

[ujjwal]

Well, gentoo is the only modern linux distro I possess. While I know its not for new users like me, I would like to attempt an install. The problem is, I dont have a CDRW drive, so I cant burn the ISO file (I have an 80MB ISO image called install-x86-minimal which I downloaded quite a qhile back). I have an installation of Redhat 7.0 on a 4GB drive. I want to remove it, and run a fresh install of gentoo ... anyway I can do it using a bootable floppy? Thanks ...

[amitsaudy]

Never heard about this 'gentoo'.
I dont think ull be able to view the linux ext partitions in msfdisk.
Anyway to uninstall redhat just use some partitioning utility
like Partion magic etc under windows n simply deleate the linux
partitions.
U can install redhat n mandrake directly through the iso image
without burning them onto cds using load lin.
Dont know if ur gentoo supports this.
Read the manual or help files from the iso image under windows
for information.
Three are many tools available which let u reag n brouse through ISO
images.
Google it.

80 MB can't be a full linux distro, U must have gotten a curropt, but then again, I have no experience with Linux, better pm tuxfan

[ujjwal]

Well gentoo comes in several stages, the 80mb is the minimal one which would install a bare minimum working system. From there one can set up networking and download the packages we need.

Gentoo is at www.gentoo.org

Yup, I am looking trhough their documentation. The promising one is anarticle on installing gentoo from a knoppix live cd ... thanks for your help.

[GNUrag]

Hello ujjwal bhai,

Gentoo is a distribution which does away from installing the complete setup CDs in a fly and ending up with 4GB full of packages that u're never gonna use....

The 80MB ISO as you said is a Minimal distro that can make you system boot and have networking facilities.... The complete distribution has to be downloaded via the internet ...

It is built on the Emerge architecture... Emerge is a package management system which is similar to the BSD ports system of installing ports of various packages....

Read documentation on emerge ... as you have to download all your packages via the internet using emerge... And get tha ISO burnt on a CD from somebody...

[ujjwal]

Thanks ... I dont think i'll be able to burn it on a cd ... but I'll look out ...

[pradeep_chauhan]

Good choice of distro it is based on debian source and a very PURE form of linux but its installation and use is not for the beginers so all the best and please share your experences with me as i too want to try it out.

[id10t]

ujjwal: if you don't want to burn the ISO or don't have access to any Linux Live CD then you just need a 6-8 GB empty partition other than the one on which you have RedHat installed.
you can install Gentoo from your RedHat install itself. read through the Gentoo Handbook and you will know more about it.
the basic of installing Gentoo is to mount the partition on which you want to install Gentoo and then chroot to it. download (or unpack from ISO) the stage you want to install and get on the job. this can be done from a Gentoo minimal CD, a Live CD or even an existing Distro install.
btw are you planning to install Gentoo on the system mentioned in your sig? if yes then i must warn you that it might take you approximately 2 days or more to compile a basic install with Xfce as your Desktop Environment. if you want to go for KDE then add 24-30 hours more.

@pradeep: Gentoo is based on Debian source? :S
Interesting!!! never knew that part. could you link me to the source from where you got this info. afaik Gentoo is pure source with patches from Gentoo developers.

Regards.

[ujjwal]

Thanks a lot that was helpful, but ...

2 days or more

Aargh! I think I am reconsidering ... redhat 7.0 sounds almost nice now ...

Some other distro's I am considering ...

Archlinux
Slackware
Fedora Core 1
Suse 9.1

I am thinking of installing the above distro's in consloe only, then to install a low resource GUI like open box ... how would that be?

[id10t]

i am sorry about gentoo but i didn't want to discourage you. its just that it is a source based distro (like LFS) and it will actually COMPILE everything because of which it takes lots of time. imo it is not worth the effort.
if you are also considering those above mentioned distros then i would chose in order of preference:

Slackware 10 : Nothing can beat this but try and do a "MENU" install and remove as many things as you can. Slackware comes with lots of packages in its CDs and also installs lots of them by default which makes it considerably slower. Also only think about running Fluxbox or Xfce as GUI. Openbox is good but I just like Fluxbox more. I would recommend Slackware anyday to anyone (as you can see from my sig )

Archlinux : A good distro with a very good package manager (PACMAN). I loved it when I tried it as it is running always on bleeding edge packages but it is good only for enthusiasts. If you are not too experienced and don't know how to get yourself out of sh!t then I would say stay away from it. BTW it won't run on your system. It is compiled with "-march=i686" flag and will work only on i686 systems i.e. PII and above. If I am not wrong then your system is a Mendocino core i.e. an i586 thus archlinux won't run on your system. But if I am wrong and it is an i686 then you can install archlinux.

SuSe 9.1 : I am not a very big fan of rpm based distros but if you want to go for one then go for SuSe or Mandrake 10.

Fedora Core 1 : If you want to stick to the feeling that you are using something supported by Redhat then go with it otherwise I don't see any reason behind this choice.

[pradeep_chauhan]

sorry i take back that one (call it a typo) for debian read linux. my mistake.

[ujjwal]

Well thanks again for the info, id10t. So as you can see ... I am basically on the watch for a low on resource distro and GUI. Well ... I always thought my CPU was an i686 as it is merely an L2 cacheless P2 (Covington) (infact I pretty much recollect seeing it identified as i686 by the System Info tool). But I think i'll try and get hold of slack from someone, and try out arch after gaining some experience.

[pradeep_chauhan]

hey i reached level 2 in the gentoo install (more tomorrow) Every one who loves linux should try out gentoo he will belive me REFORMAT his disk and load gentoo within the next 24 hrs.
"GENTOO = Mother of all linux"

[id10t]

gentoo is good as far as installing and learning is concerned but imo it is too demading to manage. just take a hypothetical situation where you update your GTK. result? recompile your whole Gnome apps or any other app that depends on GTK!!!
you compile Mozilla for 2 hours and it comes with a security patch tomorrow...what you do? you compile for two hours again...and the benefit? you shave off 2 seconds of your boot time. not worth it imho.

[GNUrag]

Originally Posted by pradeep_chauhan

"GENTOO = Mother of all linux"

Please pradeep bhai, i dont expect this from you. !!! There's a difference between name of a kernel and the name of a distribution.

gentoo != linux
gentoo == a_gnu_linux_distribution

[pradeep_chauhan]

Dear GNUrag
you see the choice of words. if after a great discovery a well known scientest could run in the streets naked shouting ureka i for the least can put up a few lines in my highly "excited and satisfied mental state"
by the way i am stuck as i am not able to configure x on gentoo so another hour reading through threads (moral in the boots today)

[pradeep_chauhan]

YES --- Finaly X and KDE are up, Gentoo boots up at lightning speed also the system itself is so responsive. I think Mr Debian(sarge) is on its way out of my disk.
Next The Network is to be configuired ( But a visit to NASA at Brigad Rd is required first to celebrate & Recharge)
Guys spare a few GB try gentoo belive me you would not regret (Only lynux guys. Gentoo is not for starters)

[GNUrag]

Originally Posted by pradeep_chauhan

Guys spare a few GB try gentoo belive me you would not regret

Dont have internet resources to update gentoo via internet .... heck, i dont have its CD also..... but then i am happy with my Debian 'Sid' ....

Originally Posted by ujjwal

But I think i'll try and get hold of slack from someone, and try out arch after gaining some experience.

I just downloaded (via BitTorrent) and burnt the Arch Linux 0.7.2 (Gimmick) I. S. O. image onto a re-writable C.D..(the full I.S.O. image,not the base/F. T. P. version).
Installation surely is not meant for a newbie........you are expected to know what you are upto. You ARE given a brief idea though of what you must be doing at that point of time.Besides that,the installer is very useful in terms of usability.No graphics here,but I found far more functions than the likes of other installers like Anaconda.
I initially selected all packages for installation.But there were few conflicting packages as well as one which failed the package integrity test,although the I. S. O. image's MD5SUM was verified to be intact.Nonetheless,I installed only the base set of packages,which took just a few minutes and later added the remaining few hundreds of packages one-by-one through Pacman after rebooting Arch Linux in my system for the first time.(Hey......it solves dependency problems pretty well ........I mean it....... )
Support for bitmap fonts was disabled by default.I could not enable it.Also,the X.org /X-server (X11R7.0)'s installation was modular,owing to which I had to refer a couple of pages in the Arch Wiki to get things done in the right way.

Although few G.N.O.M.E./K.D.E-related packages can be found in the package list,you cannot actually go and launch G. n. o. m. e./K. d. e.,simply because neither gnome-session nor startkde commands are present,because their containing packages are not installed.Not even gdm/kdm(found in kdebase) is present.Just plain xdm.After logging in,you would either have to use WindowMaker/Enlightenment/T.W.M./Blackbox/IceWM/FVWM as window managers to start a user session.I use FVWM by default as getting screen-savers to work was very easy there.

The package list should atleast satisfy those who have worked with Linux only through a command-line interface and have never used G. n. o. m. e./K. d. e.

But the best part is,the optimisation has done it's job really well........I mean.........I never thought that my nearly 6-year old desktop system would boot-up so quickly even after being loaded with the latest stable versions of software.

It is indeed a commendable G.n.u./Linux distribution,nice effort there...........and it just works
Yours faithfully,