rooting into your gentoo system.

kg4ojl · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 91

I was wondering, is there anyway to root into your system in gentoo? other than the long pain boot off the cd, then mount everything, then choot into, then env-update, then source /etc/profile, etc. I have another computer that i run slackware current on. If i have a problem and the computer don't boot, I take the cd, and boot it. at the boot prompt I would type huge26.s (kernel version) root=/dev/hda noinitrd ro. this doesn't work on gentoo. not even gentoo-source root=/dev/hda noinitrd ro. Is gentoo not able to do this, or am I missing something? or is there an easer way to to get into your system booting off the cd in gentoo.

Thank You.

zxy · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:21 am Post subject:

If you can see grub menu before booting (I don't know for lilo), you can press "e" to edit the command line. Then just repair (edit) the lines you want and press "b" to boot.

If grub greets you with the lovely

kg4ojl · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 91

Im sorry. I understand about grub. I was meaning if your couputer boots halfway there, or more than half and then locks up, or you get a kernel panic, or you forgot to compile your hd controller card in the kernel. Is there a way to boot using the livecd, or min install cd, and chroot into your system without going through all the mess as if you were installing gentoo for the first time.(mounting everything, chrooting, evn-update, source /etc/profile,etc..) An easer way to use the cd's kernel to get into your already installed system.

Donman · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 117

If you just want to get into your gentoo installation from the livecd, just boot up your livecd, mount the partitions, chroot in, env-update && source /etc/profile, then make the necessary changes so your system will boot. You dont have to do a full reinstall when you chroot into your already installed Gentoo. I hope this answers your question, but if your asking is there a different (easier) way to do it other than this, then all I can say is that there really is not any other way, AFAIK.

kg4ojl · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 16 Oct 2005 Posts: 91

I knew you didn't have to reinstall the system. I was just wondering if there was an easier way to get into your already installed gentoo system. I didn't think your was.

Thank you Donman for the info.

Donman · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 117

No problem! Although I must just admit that I did not understand your question till now. Your best bet to acheive what you are trying to do is to find a livecd that uses GRUB to boot. You can't use the Gentoo livecds because they use isolinux, and only have certain options you can pass off to the kernel. With a livecd that boots with GRUB, you can edit the boot cammands like zxy told you, and see if that works. A livecd that boots with GRUB is the RIP (Recovery is Possible) Livecd. I hope this helps, as it seems to more meet your question.

zxy · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:16 am Post subject:

Donman, thanks for the info on RIP livecd. I didn't know that a grub livecd exists. Cool. I gota get it.
It would help sometimes, at least it would spare my fingers a lot of typing when entering all those mount commands.
_________________
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu

Donman · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Posts: 117

Yeah, it is a very handy tool. Even has X. Here is a link for the page, should have posted it earlier: http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/

zxy · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: