Stage 1/3 Installation Support - Gentoo 2004.3 & GCC 343

dellaxim · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Mar 2005 Posts: 138

Thanks, that will do the trick!!!!

powderific · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Posts: 26

I've tried installing with this method twice on my IBM Thinkpad R51 and have been spectacularly unsuccessful, after I reboot into GRUB and select Gentoo, there is a brief flash of text followed by a screen that is blank other than a cursor blinking at the bottom of the screen. When I installed on my desktop a had tons of problems with configuring GRUB and my fstab wrong so I'm fairly certain I did both correctly, and in any case i would expect SOME sort of error. Can anyone suggest what I might've done wrong?

Bob P · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 2:37 pm Post subject:

without telling us what error messages are generated, we''re limited in our approach to guessing at possible problems. fail on first boot is often a kernel configuration problem. blank screens at boot are typically grub problems. without knowing the partition layout of your HD, the contents of your grub.conf and fstab files, there's no way that anyone can help you.
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powderific · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Posts: 26

Sorry bout that, here are my configuration files:

fstab: http://sio.midco.net/powderific/fstab
Grub.conf: http://sio.midco.net/powderific/grub.conf
Kernel Configuration: http://sio.midco.net/powderific/configuration26

I used Gentoo-dev-sources and set up with the -02 optimizations for pentium M, with Windows installed on the first partition. Is there somewhere I can find an error log?

If I messed up the kernel configuration, can I just go through those menus again and recompile without totally starting over? GRUB itself loads up with no problems, pretty splashscreen and everything. So I'm assuming I did something silly during configuration. Thanks for any help you can give!

edit for clarification: I used the mild optimization CFLAGS and mtune and -march=pentium m in my make.conf after installing the new gcc files(when we change the make.conf a second time and update everything), before that I used i686. In the kernel configuration I also selected Pentium M. I feel that this is perhaps where I went wrong? If so what would be the best step to start over at?

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2969

Bob P · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:30 pm Post subject:

Bob P · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject:

actually, there are more problems in your grub.conf. :oops:

it makes absolutely no sense to have a statement like "default 1" when there is no option 1 available for booting. grub counts starting at zero, so default 1 points to the second kernel entry. unfortunately, you don't even have a second kernel entry. as a result, grub must attempt to boot your non-existent second kernel entry and fail, and then the "fallback 0" statement reverts to booting the existing kernel statement, thereby covering your mistake after a long delay.

finally, why do you have two different root() statements in your grub.conf file that don't agree?

reisio · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 121

What would I need to do differently to do this install method without the separate boot partition - ie: /dev/hda1 = / and /dev/hda2 = swap ?

I thought I had a handle on it, but apparently not.

hielvc · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:22 am Post subject:

Your grub would look like this

powderific · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Posts: 26

Ok, I fixed my sillyness with the fallback and "Install grub" things, and I set the grub.conf to agree with the fstab (which is correct). I've always had trouble figuring out which root was supposed to be which, so a big thank you for helping me out with that.

Even with this configured correctly, I still am unable to boot into gentoo. The system seems like it is about to boot up, and a bit of text flashes up so quickly that I can't read it, and then a blinking cursor appears in the bottom corner of the screen. After a few seconds it moves to the bottom middle of the screen, and then blinks away as nothing else happens. (I've let it set for quite some time like this and it hasn't done anything else).

kamisama · n00b Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 41

Has anyone tried using Genkernel with this install method? I hate configuring my kernel, I always miss something. In standard installs genkernel ALWAYS works for me, as long as I use hotplug and coldplug. Will genkernel work with resierfs3.6 and the rest of this guide?

kimchi_sg · Advocate Joined: 26 Nov 2004 Posts: 2969

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject:

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject: Re: Simple question

kamisama · n00b Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 41

It was a simple question whether someone had used genkernel with this install method. I've been using gentoo for a long time. I've installed it dozens of times including various different install methods.. including several installs using 2 of the methods your guide is based on.

I appreciate your help. I appreciate your guide. I do not appreciate your quick dismisal of my abilities, or my question.

powderific · n00b Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Posts: 26

Sorry for adding to the flood of newbie questions, it seems that we perhaps get a little too excited about gentoo

. I think that the best solution for me is to just stick with a regular installation on my laptop and do the stage 1/3 install on my desktop (I know my desktop system very intimately, whereas my laptop is somewhat mysterious). In any case, thank you very much for the help that you've been providing to myself and others new to gentoo, I've learned far more thought messing up this install than I have through numerous successful ones

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject:

kamisama · n00b Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 41

I wasn't exactly offended. Just found it funny that someone could assume a lack in one subject area "definately" meant complete ineptitude in all subject areas.

You can see how it can be contradictory to think the simple questions are annoying yet take 3-4 posts talking about how simple they are to actually get someone to spill the answer to it.

I can see from your end how general gentoo install issues completely unrelated to 1/3 or nptl could get old fast.

I'm gonna bite the bullet and compile the kernel myself just to be sure. I just like genkernel because its just so damn easy.

I apologize if I came off offended, I consider the matter closed no more posts are needed as far as I'm concerned.

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:03 pm Post subject:

no hard feelings. :wink:

although compiling a kernel is a bit daunting at first, it becomes easier every time that you do it, and after doing it a couple of times, it becomes relatively easy. to make things easy, follow kimchi's advice about looking at the output of lspci and lsmod (and possibly dmesg). knowing your hardware in detail is essential information before you start working on your own kernel. the good news is that an optimized kernel will blow away genkernel, and your machine will perform better as a result of all of your effort. have fun.

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reisio · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 121

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:09 pm Post subject:

torchZ06 · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject:

reisio · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 121

Bob P · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: