Advice on installing 2005.1

radyvix · n00b Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 6

I first installed Gentoo about a year and a half ago. However, I didn't have broadband, so I updated every so often at friends houses, etc. Now that I do have broadband, I ran a big update and it pretty much borked everything. Rather than go through and fix everything up, I figured I'd reinstall. I know there are a few different install options available. So, being somewhat opposed to just running through the installation guide for the umpteenth time, what are some good and viable options? Pros/Cons, etc. I don't mind letting things compile too long, but would like a working Xorg config within a few days.

I have an AMD Athlon XP 2600
nForce2 (don't use onboard sound, do use onboard forcedeth.o though) mobo
NVIDIA GeForce4 ti4400 (4200?)
3com ethernet
decent amount of space on a few 7200 100g+ disks

I don't use gnome or kde, and prefer gtk over qt.

I'll go with some pretty conservative cflags. I plan to, eventually, run a small web/mail/ftp/vnc server through this along with lots of music/movie watching (dvd's/divx/xvid).

Any help is appreciated (crosses fingers that i don't get sent to Duplicate Threads).

Yuusou · Apprentice Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 178 Location: Canada

my suggestion is this:

run a stage 1 install for AMD, do all the junk and get it all configured to your liking. Now, for your GUI, what I really liked doing for minimalistic purposes, was running fluxbox and then using a terminal to start kicker (KDE panel). I realize you prefer gtk over qt, but I really liked this. Or, you could do the same with GNOME's panel (dunno what it;s called). But my overall suggestion is definately do stage 1. Pain in the butt sometimes but it's the most reliable I find. And now that you have network, it should be a Piece of Cake. Any other questions? Jus ask.

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

Stage 1 isn't worth it. Get the athlon-xp stage 3.

It's an easier ride, and quite honestly you will gain little if anything from a stage 1 (how do you think they make the stage 3's? Yep, they go from stage 1...)

If you're in the 'but I want an uber-fast ricer system' gang, do a search for a jackass tarball for athlon-xp. They actually seem to be 'stable enough', and again will save you a lot of time.

At the end of the day, if you recompile everything in the course of upgrading as new versions are released, then what's the difference between how it was installed 12 months down the line?

loki99 · Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:10 pm Post subject:

I'd also recommend to do a stage3 athlon-xp install. You could also try a Jackass install, even though it became more and more unappealing, lately (to me that is :wink:

).

As a DE i would suggest taking a look at XFCE4.

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

xfce4's nice, I used it for a while and still keep it on my system for those 'I want something lighter than gnome' moments. Fluxbox is also nice, but maybe more minimalist than you're after (I tend to use it for gaming, when you don't need the memory footprint of a big DE)

Have heard a number of people like enlightenment - I didn't last time I tried it, but maybe worh a look if you don't like the other two.

As always, have a play & see what you like