Install Gentoo from a 56k connection... from stage 1!

thinker5555 · Last edited by thinker5555 on Mon Jun 24, 2002 5:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

Installing Gentoo over a dialup connection isn't well supported at the moment. Many times I've seen it suggested that one needs to download the stage 3 ISO in order to perform a modem install. Downloading stage 3 isn't necessary. Downloading an ISO and burning it to CD isn't even necessary. In the cases of some, one or the other is not even an option. Stage 3 is compiled only for i686 (if what' I've read is correct) and this leaves out anyone not using that CPU type. Or there are people out there (like me

) that prefer to be able to really compile everything from the beginning with all of our own optimizations and quirks that we want in it. Stage 3 doesn't allow for this. So here is my tip for installing from stage 1 over a 56k connection.

First, you need at least 2 things: 1) A Linux/Unix system that already runs with a modem connection, and 2) stage 1. Stage one can just be the downloaded tbz2 file, or can be off the ISO. Your choice.

Boot up into your current Linux/Unix distro
Establish your net connection as you normally would
Progress from step 6 in the CD installation manual as normal. (do NOT try to establish your connect from within the chrooted Gentoo environment. Gentoo will automatically find your currently running connection and use it seamlessly)
After running emerge rsync, do "emerge net-www/prozilla" A.S.A.P. (don't forget to set prozilla in your make.conf file. Open it in nano and you'll see it about half way down) By default the install uses wget, which is fine, but prozilla splits the files and downloads in parallel. This speeds up the process a little bit.
After getting prozilla set, pick back up with the instructions and finish it out to the end.

[Edit:
If you feel that you'd prefer to boot off of the CD, you can do so, but you'll still need another distro installed that can connect to the net from the command line.

Boot from the CD.
Start a console and mount your other distro. Chroot to it, and start your internet connection at the command line. If you need X in order to get your internet connection going, this will not work. Follow the steps given above to install Gentoo.
Change to another console, activate it, and pick up with Step 3 above.

Doing this will allow you to run the kernel and initrd from the CD, allowing you to use any and all features supported by Gentoo (such as XFS). This is especially good if your current kernel doesn't support features that you wish to use, and you don't want to recompile your kernel just to add these features. The down side is that your computer will be "down" for quite a while for installing over the modem. You can chroot to your current distro in another console, but you may be limited in the number of apps that you can use in this way.

/end Edit.]

Just keep in mind that when you're creating your gentoo partition, you need the filesystem support in your CURRENTLY RUNNING KERNEL for whichever filesystem you wish to use. (ie, XFS, EXT3, etc).

Note: when you do your emerges ("emerge system", etc), it's good to use the "--fetchonly" flag. This will only download the packages. When your downloading is done, you can do emerge again without the flag, and this will build the packages you downloaded.

Doing an install this way has the following advantages:

Installing using this method can be done within an xterm or in a console. Only that console or xterm is affected by the chroot. The rest of your system will still act normally.
You can remain productive in your current distro while you install Gentoo. Being that downloading over a 56k connection, this is a definite plus.
You can quit the installation any time you like. And pick up where you left off later. Just hit ctrl-c (or ctrl-r if you're using prozilla for your downloading). If you ctrl-c in the middle of a build, then when you start again, that build will start from the beginning of the package it left off of. (so I wouldn't quit in the middle of compiling X or KDE )
If you forgot a package (say wvdial) and can't connect to the internet after booting into Gentoo, you can chroot in to Gentoo from your current distro, just like you did during the install, and do a post install "emerge <yourpackagehere>". Now you have your missing package.

Again, I'd like to point out that while you are installing Gentoo this way, you can still use your system as normal. (although while compiling, things may be a bit slow).

If anyone has any questions or comments on this, please let me know.

Good luck, and have fun,
Jeremy

rolf · Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2002 6:44 pm Post subject:

This has been helpful to me for a pppoe dsl account. I have used this method to dink around on an install from Stage3 before I saw this advice and I will probably start again from tarball using the connection in Mandrake. The chroot stuff has enabled me to update my cooker install without rebooting, so I have learned a lot from this tip. Great stuff. Thanks!

DArtagnan · Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 1:45 pm Post subject:

After switching to prozilla i tried:
# emerge --fetchonly mozilla

I got the file for almost 400 k/sec ;-)

You also can edit the make.conf to get more threads and to use the max band width:
FETCHCOMMAND='/usr/bin/proz -k=7 --max-bps=0 --no-getch -s ${URI} -P ${DISTDIR}'
1) -k=7 means open 7 threads
2) --max-bps=0 means Limit bandwith consumed to n bps (0=unlimited)

Or you can edit the /etc/prozilla.conf file

----
New post:
At home i have ADSL so I realy want to use all my band width so I was added 12 threads ( -k=12 ) and now I emerge stuff at 220 k/sec ( aprox )...this instead 70 that wget gave me...

Thanks
_________________
All for one and one for All
--

MACPRO machine...

Carbonize · n00b Joined: 29 Jun 2002 Posts: 10

An alternative method is downloading a boot cd (doesn't matter wich) and modefying the kernel/rescue.gz to fit your needs. There's 2 megs extra on the rescue file which holds the file-system, and this is usually plenty to add just enough to get internet up and running (no matter what type of connection as long as it is supported under linux)

I would give a more detailed description, but I'm still having some minor problems keeping me from actually installing. What I have accomplished so far is to boot from the cd and connect to the internet over an isdn connection. Pinging adresses was no problem.

The thing keeping me from installing is that the devfs file system got crippled along in the process, and since I'm a newbie, I haven't figured out just why. (if someone could help me out on this, I would appreciate it)

The best thing about this type of install, is that you don't need to have any other distro installed.
_________________
Carbonize signing off...

thinker5555 · Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 11:44 pm Post subject:

Wow... that's a good tip, Carbonize. I've been planning on messing around with the stage 1 ISO to do something similar, but I hadn't gotten a chance yet. (and since I actually got Gentoo installed and running just fine, my incentive has dropped a bit :oops:

) But I'm soon planning on installing Gentoo again now that I've gotten the basics under my belt, and I'm wanting to do a GCC3 install with a big kde optimization

Thanks for the info,

Jeremy

Pindrop · Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2002 3:16 pm Post subject:

I tried this a few minutes ago, popped in the CDROM and tried to start the install from stage 6, but it wouldnt let me mke2f -j on my hard drives saying theyre in use. Do I need to chroot onto the CD or something? Walk a newbie through this please!

zen_guerrilla · Guru Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Posts: 343 Location: Greece

After playing around with 1.2 cd while installing on my laptop I found out that it includes /usr/sbin/pppd & chat & also /etc/ppp dir so I guess that one could set up a ppp connection 'by hand' following the ppp-how-to and make a stage1 installation without any existing linux/unix installation.

(however I personally wouldn' t dare do so on a 56k connection

)

Swishy · Guru Joined: 06 Jun 2002 Posts: 491 Location: NZ

carpaski · Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 1:10 pm Post subject: Download During Merges

Downloads continuously. Combine it with the prozilla notice above
and you could see much completion of downloads. Slower connections
could benefit greatly.

I'm looking for testers.

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1661
_________________
Nicholas Jones <carpaski@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Linux Developer

davidn

I've just finished installing gentoo for the first time, from Stage 1, using a 56k modem. I downloaded the 1.4rc4 3-Stage install and burnt it to a CD (but I really only needed the first stage).

Here's what I would recommend to others attempting the same:

Step 6

Step 7

Code Listing 7.2

Step 8

Code Listing 8.3

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#gentoo.sh - mount and chroot into gentoo environment
mount /dev/hdb3 /mnt/gentoo
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc

#this is to remind me to do the following
echo "do: env-update; source /etc/profile"
chroot /mnt/gentoo

#when we exit the chroot this happens:
umount /mnt/gentoo/proc
umount /mnt/gentoo/boot
umount /mnt/gentoo

There's probably a better way to automate the env-update; source /etc/profile bit but I don't know it

. If you're not familiar with shell scripts make sure you run chmod u+rx gentoo.sh.

Now when I wanted to stop and come back to it, all I had to do was open an xterm, su to root and type ./gentoo.sh.

NOTE: In Code Listing 8.3 it says to do cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf. Under redhat8, this is an empty file. When I went on to the next step, I was connected to the internet but couldn't get the gentoo chrooted environment to use the connection. After a little head scratching, I found a "good" version in /etc/ppp/resolv.conf and used that instead. It just contained 2 lines with my ISP's nameserver info. (Conclusion: Make sure your resolv.conf works!)

6. Edit /etc/make.conf with nano, find the line which says GENTOO_MIRRORS and change the first entry to your closest mirror. I'm in Sydney so mine is http://public.planetmirror.com.au/pub/gentoo/.

7. Connect to the internet (as you normally would in eg redhat). Do Step 9, emerge sync/b] and wait a little while...

8. The above post says that you should [b]emerge net-www/prozilla ASAP. I couldn't do it at this stage because it wouldn't compile, due to a missing ncurses-5.3-r1. That's okay, wget is fine for now.

9. Complete Step 10, setting your other make.conf options.

10. Once you've completed Step 11 (which will take some time), try doing emerge net-www/prozilla. It should now compile.

11. Edit /etc/make.conf with nano, and uncomment the FETCHCOMMAND line for prozilla. Delete the -s (which will waste time trying to connect to non-existent servers).

12. Edit /etc/prozilla.conf and edit the "threads" line to say threads = 2. (Make sure you get rid of the #). I think two threads are reasonable for a 56k modem.

13. In Step 12, instead of emerge system, do emerge -f system first. This will just download all the packages you need. My ISP disconnects me every four hours (to stop me abusing my 'unlimited' plan I guess) so I set it up to reconnect automatically. Prozilla handles this. This takes a while at 56k. Once that's finished, type emerge system and, as the install document suggests, go find something else to do.

14. Now, whenever you see emerge <something> do emerge -f <something> first.

15. You can skip Code listing 16.1 because you'll just be using ppp, not ppp over ethernet. However, it's probably a good idea to do emerge -f wvdial and then emerge wvdial at this stage. I copied across some of the /etc/ppp/* files and /etc/wvdial.conf from my redhat drive, which worked just fine when I finally rebooted into gentoo.

16. Follow through the rest of the install documentation, reboot, and have fun!

If you still want to use your existing distribution, you can still use ./gentoo.sh as root and emerge while you work!

Hopefully all this will help a few people out there who are stuck in countries with expensive broadband like me... it was my first post - how did I do?

Disquiet · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2003 6:59 pm Post subject:

If you want to speed things up a lot, find someone you know that has Gentoo already and get them to copy everything in /usr/portage/distfiles onto cd for you.

Then copy the cd contents into your own /usr/portage/distfiles (on the chrooted gentoo) and you've just skipped having to download most of the files you need for your system.

I've got ADSL and have burnt a few cds for friends like this, and it only takes them a weekend (of compiling) to get Gentoo up rather than weeks

christsong84 · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2003 9:37 pm Post subject:

Disquiet · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2003 7:30 pm Post subject:

Not really...this way you only have to download a 40MB boot cd instead of the 400MB+ GRP cd...and it lets you compile the packages the way you want.

GRP has compiled packages like X - but does it have the sources for them as well?