Gentoo Installation

LinuxNoobie1288 · n00b Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Posts: 18

I have a 18 Gig hard drive on my laptop, i have xp installed with all of my programs and everything. I have about 12 Gigs of space left on the hard drive. Would 5 Gigs of space be enough for gentoo to operate alright?

THanks!

adaptr · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject:

Depends on what you expect from it - the more you install, the more space you need (that one was a bit obvious).
For a basic X install with KDE, OOo (that's OpenOffice.org, for you noobie ;-)

), you can make do with 4 to 5 GB, yes.

But remember - the fun only starts there.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

didnt want to start another Installation related topic, so im replying in this one.

my question is: is it possible and is it wise to install gentoo from bios? i usially format my diskbefore installing, whenever my OS crashes, so ive beeing thinking bout formatting it before installing gentoo. i do get the idea that i can have a dual boot for them, and that goes into my other question - if i do dual-boot, is it possible to later remove XP, if i like Linux? and the follow up to that, - is it possible to install gentoo on the same disk as windows, without partitioning?

mattjgalloway · l33t Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 761 Location: Coventry, UK

"install from bios" ?

From this I assume you mean boot from a CD or something? Yes you can boot from a CD, called LiveCD.

You can later remove XP if you dual boot and end up liking linux (which you will do

). You simply need to remove the XP partition.

As for installing on the same partition. This is surely impossible, as the filesystems for linux and windows are different. I beleive there is a thing called "Linux For Windows", or something like that, which can run alongside windows. Good for learning I guess....

Stick with making partitions - much easier!

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

i got my disk separated on 2 one is 50 other is 10 gigs. xp is installed on the 50 gig one. ill probably install gentoo on the 10 gig one, how much space will it take up? another question - if ill really like gentoo (which i hope i will) will i be able to just simply move the folder from the lesser disk to bigger one, or it will not matter?

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:18 am Post subject:

mattjgalloway · l33t Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 761 Location: Coventry, UK

Ahh I see your question now!

My advice would be - go get another hard drive to install gentoo onto. I have messed around in the past with partitioning big hard drives to allow me to try out OSs, but it's really not worth it. You'll end up running out of space on one OS and then having loads of space left on the other. PartitionMagic can help with this problem, but too much hassle I think!

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

i do have partition magic. and i dont have 2 disks, i have one devided on 2. linux uses another partition than windows right? so if i install gentoo on leser disk, ill have it in w/e partition linux needs, but other one will be in FAT32, right? and what i mean about moving the folder, i meant like windows has its folder on c:\windows and stuff. but im thinking that where the OS is installed doesnt matter much, right?

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 3:26 pm Post subject:

It doesn't work that way - Linux has no "folders" as you might think of them on Windows.
It always needs separate partitions for everything.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

so if i format my disk, uninstalling windows and cleaning up my drive, will i be able to install gentoo?

Cosmin · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 5:20 pm Post subject:

Hehehe, soon you won't talk like that anymore. I see everybody is a little bit confused because you mix notions like disk/partition, formatting/partitioning, folder/directory and so on. Welcome to linux, where everything is different. In RedHat/Mandrake you wouldn't have those problems, they are more "eye-candy" and "user-friendly". Because you are here, I presume you are really interested in Gentoo and you are willing to give it a try.
My advice: don't erase windows yet! You still need it. Install Gentoo over the 10GB partition (not disk

). When everything is installed and you will have to reboot, well (I already smile when I think about it) you'll have a surprise! But don't panic! Your windows is still there AND still available... Return to the forums for help. You will know much, much more about linux. Or read the forums and the FAQs.

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

by surprise u mean that there will be a menu that will ask me which OS i want to load?

another question i got: having 2 OS's installed, will not slow my computer in any way?

and yes, i really want to figure out Gentoo and i hope ill like it

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

what do u mean persist in running windows?

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 7:46 pm Post subject:

I mean that when you have the option of booting either Gentoo or Windows, running Windows will always cause it to run slower...

Never mind, it was a Zentoo joke.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

another question popped into my head. windows programs dont work with linux. are there places to get the extra programs for gentoo? also if there is a choice to dl a program and there are links to dl it for windows and mac, do i click the mac one? is it gonna work?

Cosmin · Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:00 am Post subject:

No, you can't run Windows or Mac programs under Linux. Well, you could actually, but it's not going to worth the trouble (except for games maybe

). You could use Winex to have a Windows layer to run your Windows games in Linux. For now, you can keep your Windows installation, because you can have both installed on your computer. When the computer boots, you will have a menu which asks you which one would you like to run: Windows or Linux. When you'll feel comfortable with Linux, maybe (just maybe), you will wipe out the Windows partition.
For the beginning, I would recommend you to start with a much easier to install distro. Mandrake is an excellent choice for the beginner. Please, don't take me wrong, I don't mean to throw out, but if you install Gentoo without a little background, you can really mess your computer. You can play for a week or two with Mandrake and get comfortable. It took me one year to switch from Mandrake to Gentoo, so two weeks could be a very short period of time. Things are different in Windows and Linux, so take your time... If you have questions, you can always ask here, mo matter how n00b you are. We are all here to learn and everybody here is asking questions they don't know the answer (would be worthless otherwise) in the hope they will receive a helpful answer.
Good luck!

mattjgalloway · l33t Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 761 Location: Coventry, UK

I agree and disagree really.

If you know even a little about how a computer works behind the scenes of the operating system, then try gentoo. Go for a stage 1. It taught me lots about linux in general. However, I did know the basic commands, and I know about how the system works.

For instance, if you know what fdisk does, what a partition is, what a filesystem is and what compiling means, then you are good to go for gentoo. I'd be very careful when you get to the kernel stage though. This is hard to get right first time. If you know what a kernel is and why you can configure it, then go for "make menuconfig". If not, then go for "genkernel".

Mandrake, Slackware, Red Hat are all very nice easy to install and use distros, but don't teach you much about the linux environment.

As for windows programs... I have used Wine before, and it works fine. It is only worth it for games though really. You can find just as good software for everything else.

Post back with what distro you've gone for!

adaptr · Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:19 pm Post subject:

mattjgalloway · l33t Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 761 Location: Coventry, UK

Yeh, it's true that Zeho doesn't sound like he will be able to install gentoo with that much ease, but my advice is give it a shot. As long as it's on a partition somewhere, and you don't go messing with the windows partition, then you can always just remove gentoo alltogether and install red hat or something...

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

i dont mind learning and i dont mind messing up. less than 2 years ago i couldnt tell u how to reinstall windows. if i mess up, ill try again, then again, and again. and to add to the point, redhat is a lil over 100 in best buy here, and i dont think id pay that much money for something, just to make my life easier. i havent received my disks yet, so i cant even start trying to install gentoo, but for now im just reading some tutorials and such. and if i fry my computer, there is always my second one ^^

mattjgalloway · l33t Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 761 Location: Coventry, UK

Go for it. Install gentoo, and if you encounter problems then you should find answers here. If not, then post some messages and people will try to help.

Received your disks?! Just download what you need to download and away you go. It's all free...

Zeho · n00b Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Toronto

i tried, but a) i cant figure out how to transform .ISO formats work on the cd's. b) i tried tp download the files, but i got no clue which ones i need.

verden01 · n00b Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 9

I am also new to Gentoo and recieved my Live Universal CD and my AthlonXP packages CD yesterday. Before i start i would like to know if Gentoo dual boots ? My hard drive has /dev/hda1-Windows XP
/dev/hda2- Extended
/dev/hda5 - Swap(512mb)
/dev/hda6 - Libranet 2.8
/dev/hda7 - Fedora Core
I want to install Gentoo on /dev/hda7 partition so will i still be able to boot XP and Libranet?
I've installed many distro's on this drive before but with GUI's and more user friendly Distro's this is quite easy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.