fdisk screenshots necessary.

[fghellar]

[BradN]

I agree with the point that if people don't know how to use fdisk, that they're probably going to run into more problems later, but... at the same time I think there's a lot of people that could learn fdisk or [insert any part of the installation] except that it takes them more time to do so than if there were an easier way that would just 'get it done'.

What I'm trying to ask is why should we force people to learn how to do all of this stuff by hand, if there's an easier way that's (in most cases) just as good at accomplishing the given task. I for one, would like an automated config file merger utility that would let you compare the old and new config files side by side and make the necessary adjustments, then hit OK and go on to the next file. It is a slight annoyance to have an "emerge -u world" finish and then have to look at 15 config files manually just to make sure nothing needs to be updated.

It's the same kind of thing with fdisk - they're only going to partition stuff once when they install, so why force people to do it in a way that would probably be slower for them? Even a handholding installer like mandrake's wouldn't be a terrible thing. I know I'm not going to remember how to install again unless I look at the guide anyway. Most of the difficulty in getting gentoo running compared to other distro's is the time it takes to set up the system to start installing/compiling.

[ManicMailman]

well heres my story:
i had windows for a few years, switched to mandrake for about a month, and then tried gentoo.
sure it was hard and it took awhile, but i finished it my first try successfully.
as for fdisk, while i was somewhat confused, i got through it fine.
basically, there can be newbies trying gentoo without specific documentation. just let people take the dive and try to work through the install on their own. sure i wouldve gotten through the install much faster with someone holding my hand, but i learned alot, and it was all worth it in the end. besides, the newbies who get their hands held are the ones who will ask all the RTFM questions.

^--my $.02

[kavel]

[BradN]

I suppose it helps knowing that kind of stuff

[StrCrssd]

Yes, I'm overgeneralizing.

However, I think we have a lot to learn from the fine BSD folks. I am a linux newbie. I came to unices about 8 months ago, first installing SuSe (and hating it), then moving to FreeBSD because of the wonderous ports system. Why? Ports worked. It stopped dependency hell. I was able to compile programs like Gabber and have them actually work! By golly, it was wonderful. I came to Gentoo because it offers virtually the same thing (portage) and it also offers drivers for my nvidia card (accelerated even!).

Coming from someone who's been in the *nix world for only 8 months, the only hesitation I had when doing a gentoo install was the fdisk. I had never before used actual "fdisk", always cfdisk or some proprietary solution. Now, when installing Gentoo, I had about 80 gb of partially edited video on the drive, and wanted to make damn sure not to lose it. It was a tense moment when I ordered fdisk to write changes. I was very concerned for the many hours I had worked on that video data. Paritioning is potentially destructive, it needs a tool that not only makes the user aware of that, but is intuative to a user who has had experience in partitioning. fdisk does not provide either of these things. cfdisk is better for this circumstance.

Aside from that, I have no problem with gentoo being a distribution tailored for each machine it is installed onto, and the config files and obscure utilities to prove it!

A quick suggestion, might be a good idea to mention gentools in the installation hand-holder. I would have never heard of it except from these forums.

--StrCrssd

[Guest]

Why did the UNIX users at our company switch from RedHat as a desktop O/S to Gentoo? I believe the #1 reason was that we felt RedHat has been getting further and further away from our vision of a UNIX system, starting with the obfuscated layout of /etc. It took too long to figure out how any given part of the O/S was configured, unless we used RedHat's configuration tools. We've all been living UNIX for >12 years, and see all the desktop fluff more as novelty than as a requirement, so a sane configuration layout is essential. It's not that we couldn't figure it out, it's that we felt we already knew how it should work.

Which brings us to Gentoo, or the BSD variants, or even Solaris (to some extent). Any of these still have that UNIX vibe, and files are where I expect them to be. And no, I don't need a damn curses/Motif/GTK/Qt GUI to partition a drive, because I have the ability to add one number to another. I can even subtract, if so required. Wow.

[dvNuLL]

Well I for one can use both fdisk or cfdisk. I have a preference to cfdisk due to the curses based gui. It still requires u to know how to partition but at least you dont have to hit p after every change to see the reflected changes. It shows up after u make it.

dvNuLL

[Guest]

Just a thought that has already been posted in this thread prolly several times. A how-to needs to be writen for fdisk. When I was dealing with it getting my partitions set up I had no idea how to get the size set in mb and ended up with a huge boot and swap partition. LOL, I look back on it now and laugh but it really sucked man. It would take a fast typer all of 20 minutes to type something up with all the details. Is that to much to ask? Would 20minutes out of a day be to much time spent know all the people that it would help? Hell I'd do it but I don't know enough about it to type something, that and I am a slow typer

My personal feeling on fdisk is that it was a bad choice for a partitioning utility and one of the things that I fell wasn't payed enough attention to. Either a better program should have been chosen or instructions included. Mainly how to set size using mb apparently its just +1024M but I had no idea at the time, hehehe.

[huw]

[Chris Hickman]

I just completed my first Gentoo install, after having installed and played around with Mandrake (8.1 and 8.2) and Red Hat (7.1 and 7.2). I was, and still am, a Linux newbie.

However, the advertised speed and control benefits of running Gentoo intrigued me, as a power user in Windows. I read over the install guide and decided it was pretty clear-cut, and I also have a couple of books lying around to help me out.

I fucked up a couple times, the install burped a couple of times, I politely asked questions here and at irc.openprojects.org #gentoo, and I got it installed. I didn't bitch and moan about it the software not meeting MY needs, I did what I had to do and learned what I needed to know to get it installed. Like other people said, if you want an easier install process, write it yourself or get another distro; don't expect someone else to do it for you.

That being said, I think that there are a few improvements that could make it better for all involved, not just newbies. I think that a menu-driven partition manager would be great (even the Kernel has a menu!). I think that, at this point where we are stuck between two versions of gcc, a menu (or at least a question, y or n) somewhere giving you the choice between 2.9x and whatever the stable version of 3.xx might be at the time would be nice. Another nice addition would be if Gentoo could tell you the approximate time it's going to take to compile whatever you happen to be compiling, so that those of us that are home for an extended period of time don't have to camp out in front of the PC, but can return within a few minutes of completion to keep the ball rolling. Other than that, I think it's very clear-cut and not difficult if you know your hardware and RTFM

Chris

[Swishy]

Having only been using linux, myself for about 6 month's and deciding to do a Gentoo install i found with the dos/windows knowledge I had previously it was just a matter of using the help commands to work out the differences ...I mean fdisk command is used in DOS and it doesnt take much to work out the differences between using the dos version and the text based *nix version...I think as far as the newbie install is concerned the DOC's are more than adequite and the forums are fantastic....I say leave fdisk as it is as it keeps things happy from either view point......(just my 2 cents worth )
_________________
Theres no substitute for C.I.

[BinaryAlchemy]

3 points:
Noob bashing is not cool. It hurts linux, it hurts gentoo, and it makes you look like an egotistical fool.

Adding cfdisk (how the hell did we get back on this?) isn't just a good thing for noobs, it's a good thing for sysadmins who don't like to break out the calculator/scratch paper to partition their hard drive. Just because I know how do partition it with a hex editor doesn't mean I should to do it that way.

Slackware, IMHO the most noob unfriendly distro (and the best way to learn linux), has cfdisk on their install cd.

[tomte]

[delta407]

[BinaryAlchemy]

Yes, you are noob bashing. If the noob says "this doesn't make sense" and your response is "yes it does stupid, now stop complaining" that's bashing. Also, +xxxM isn't documented in the install instructions or in the help listings inside of fdisk. Do you really think +512M a logical response to "First cylinder:"? And finally, it's much more complicated if you're trying to squeeze a new partition in around your existing ones.

[tomte]

[delta407]

[BinaryAlchemy]

Sorry if that came on to strong, it wasn't directed entirely at you. But yes, "what (the f***) is so hard in writing +10G?" (which you quoted an affirmed) is equivalent to "yes it does stupid, now stop complaining".