Help on Installing Gentoo for my Acer.

[TuxDevil]

I have an Acer TM 8104 laptop with Pentium M 2.0G, 1 100G HDD but it divided to C and D drive. Window files is on C and I'm using D for downloading files.
I want to install Gentoo but I'm not really sure how. Does C and D drive count as 2 different hard drive? Do I need to do partition or anything? Can I keep my files on both drivers?
I'm sorry for asking so many questions but I'm totally new to Linux so please help me out.
Thank you.

[psychomunky]

Yes, each counts as a separate hard drive. While it is possible to install and run linux on a FAT filesystem (hopefully you don't have NTFS), it is not recommend to do so. Have a look at the Gentoo Handbook for general installation instructions.

To move space on your Windows partitions around to make room for a native Linux partition, I'd recommend using to the GParted LiveCD. I have used it to resized many NTFS and FAT partitions with no problems. (However, PLEASE backup your drives first). The nice thing about GParted is that you can resize your drive without (theoretically) losing data.

If you are uncomfortable doing that, then you might try running linux under the newly free VMWare Server or VMWare Player (With the latter you'll need a pre-built VMWare Appliance). There are a few pre-installed Linux VMWare appliances here, such as Slackware 10.2, Fedora Core 6, Debian 3.1, SUSE, PCLinuxOS, Gentoo 2006.1 barebones, Ubuntu 6.06, etc, etc.

This might actually be one of the best ways to go without risking pooching your machine. I am not questioning your technical abilities, I am just keeping in mind that you said you were noob. Gentoo, while awesome and powerful and (IMHO) one of the best Linux distros out there is not for the faint of heart. I just finished spending 3 weeknights tracking down why my USB devices weren't hot plugging properly.

With VMWare Server, you can also go through the whole gentoo install process without any risk of pooching your current windows install. Once you are comfortable with the process, then you should try it on native hardware to see it really scream (VMWare will slow down the Linux system to a degree).

In fact I regularly try out different Linux distros using VMWare Server right now.

[madisonicus]

http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/a.j.mee/blog/index.php/2006/05/10/acer-travelmate-8204wlmi-with-gentoo/ should be of some help.

The http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ website was very helpful for me too while getting my laptop up and running.

Not much else to add to what psychomunky said, except that if you've never used linux before you might want to run from a LiveCD like Knoppix for a bit, just so you get a feel for things.

HTH,
m
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[TuxDevil]

One question: Can you install Linux on a separate External HDD (Western Digital one) with half for Linux and half for sharing file between Linux and Window?

[psychomunky]

I don't see that as being a theoretical problem, as long as your PC's BIOS can handle booting from an external USB drive.

Although, I am not sure if the multi-OS boot loaders for x86 (LILO and Grub) can handle USB devices (or aleast handle them well). Most bootable USB linux distros I have come across use syslinux, or some variant, which can only load one OS (that is, it doesn't display a screen for your to pick your OS). IIRC GRUB will be getting proper support for USB (it already supports chainloading and finding CDROMs) at some point in the future (GRUB2 likely). However this article might help you out.