Stage 1 install for the impatient!

[davecs]

Right, so you have a nice new computer and want to install gentoo on it, but cannot wait for days whilst everything gets set up.

Solution? Set up another instance of Linux (a fast-loading variety, could use Gentoo Stage 3 + GRP or maybe Mandrake).

First partition your Hard Drive as you would for a standard Gentoo install but then make an extra partition. In considering the size, assume it will eventually be mounted at /home.

Install your fast loading distro in the partition you have earmarked for /home. You will need to get the network set up etc. Then follow the instructions to set up Gentoo from another linux distro using the stage1 tarball. The thing now is that, at any time, you can restart your computer and chroot into your Stage 1 Gentoo set up from a terminal, and carry on loading stuff. You will obviously need to have LILO or GRUB set up to boot both kernels. The condition is that whatever distro you use you will need to have GCC etc loaded.

The only thing I would say is that you should not set up a permanent "user" at this stage. You can do that later when your Gentoo stage 1 is up and running. Meantime you can have your "chroot"ed Gentoo build emerging away in a terminal, whilst you're browsing the web, and using all your favourite programs.

When you have fully got your new setup installed, you can mount it at /home, and then (as root) copy /home/home to /home and delete everything else under /home, then add the user and all the stuff should be there.

If you used Mandrake or similar, your may even be able to use lsmod to give you an idea of what kernel features you need to install in your Gentoo kernel, and this type of distro makes a pretty good fist of setting up files like /etc/X11/XF86Config so you can copy it over and tweak it. There could be a couple of extra fonts and wallpapers to play with as well!

I got this idea because I am doing a "clean" install of gentoo on a spare partition using my current install. The last time I tried to install a 2.6 kernel over a 2.4 kernel I managed to b0rk something, so I started this process last night. After a couple of little errors, which I was able to fix quickly because I had access from my original setup, I had the kernel up and running and everything apparently working. So I went back to my old setup, put up the terminal, did the chroot, and issued: "emerge kde". When I got up this morning it was at about 44 of 96, and it might be ready this evening, then I can test it and do my "emerge gnome" in the background whilst I continue to use my old setup.

The reason I mentioned Mandrake is that when I first used Gentoo, I found reading some of Mandrake's config files proved very useful when setting up things like fstab and XF86Config.

Hope this is of use to someone ...
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Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[sr20seth]

Great idea. I would recommend using knoppix (this is what I use to install gentoo anyway). Knoppix installs instantly, autosetups everything, and you dont have to juggle a spare partition.

[davecs]

It wouldn't be a new idea if I used Knoppix, that is already documented.

I always think it is a good idea to set aside a partition for /home so it won't be deleted if you change distros or have to reinstall.

My idea was to use that partition for a temporary setup (you can even switch the computer off) and you can keep your home partition once everything's done. The main point was to use a free, easy-and-quick-to-set-up Linux to tide you over until you get your optimised Gentoo system.
_________________
Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[sr20seth]

ok i understand. Personally I'd rather use knoppix.

[Insanity5902]

[davecs]

Got a new computer recently so I had the chance to put my theory into practice!

Got Mandrake 10 Community DVD off Linux Format, and loaded it in. I have a few "legacy" Windows programs I still need so I set up my new 160Gb Hard Drive as follows:

hda1 > 2Gb Windows C:
hda2 > 70kb Gentoo /boot
hda3 > 70kb Mandrake /boot
hda4 Extended partition
hda5 > 15Gb Windows D:
hda6 > 15Gb Windows E:
hda7 > 30Gb Gentoo /
hda8 > 30Gb Gentoo+Mandrake shared /home
hda9 > 20Gb Mandrake /
hda10 > 1Gb Linux swap
hda11 > remainder Gentoo+Mandrake shared /spare

Note for Windows dual booters: I use win98se, and I use a program called "tweakui" to change the Program Files to E:, and Fonts and Documents folders to D:. This way, only small additions get made to C:, meaning that you can backup the partition from time to time, and if a new program or some nasty from the net b0rks your setup, you can restore the previous one, and delete any folders set up by the program on E:, result, all gone!

It took me the usual 25 minutes to load Mandrake, end to end. As I used kernel 2.6, "forcedeth" was on board, and it was just a case of downloading the nvidia drivers, and I was off and going. After playing a few days, I decided to do a Stage3 install without GRP. I used the disk to do the basic install, and rebooted back into Mandrake. By chrooting into the Gentoo partition from Mandrake (I mounted it at /gentoo) it was a simple task to carry the installation from there. The only thing that wouldn't go was the nvidia-glx emerge, because the Gentoo ebuild checks the running kernel for MTRR, but basically I was able to play with my computer, internet, OpenOffice, and so on, whilst loading up X, KDE and Gnome.

As both systems used kernel 2.6, gnucash would not build, so after all the dependencies had loaded and the final build failed, I booted my Gentoo CD (which uses 2.4) and set up the chrooted environment and built gnucash from there.

One little thing, if you have two linux systems in LILO, you have to do LILO differently. From Gentoo, the mandrake kernel is located at /mandrake/boot, instead of /boot, so to include this in my lilo.conf file I had to use /mandrake/boot/kernel-name instead of /boot/kernel-name to put Mandrake on the menu. The LILO configurator in KDE Control Centre actually detects any kernels...

Anyway, it worked. Now all the biggies are done I only visit Mandrake to see how something works when it does not appear to work in Gentoo. My idea worked in practice.
_________________
Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[kamilian]

Just to add another possibility in there, I was thinking of trying something similar to this.

I have my partitions set up along the lines of:

hda1: Windows (C:)
hda5: /boot
hda6: /
hda7: /mnt/data and Windows (D:)

I was planning on rebuilding from stage one using my current Gentoo install but using the LFS method. Namely, create a large enough file to hold the system, make it an ext2/3 fs and then mount using -o loop.

It would be neccesary to mount some additional space for /var/tmp/portage and maybe /usr/portage/distfiles, but they could simply be some subdirectories under the already /tmp directory of the good Gentoo install.

When finished it would be a matter of copying the file to /mnt/data, boot from CD, mount /mnt/data, mount the file with -o loop and copy over the new system.

Having said that, it would probably be possible to just re-create a directory structure under /tmp of the good Gentoo install and chroot into that. Simply tar up the resulting system, copy to /mnt/data, boot from CD and untar.
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May contain traces of nuts.