[ANSWERED]Installing from another distro?

[wolfger]

I've read (don't remember where, it was long ago) that Gentoo can be installed from any existing distro, no CD required. For example, I have Mepis on HDA and I want to install Gentoo on HDB. I have questions:

Is it possible?
Does it make a difference if the old distro is 32 bit, and I want to install Gentoo 64-bit (AMD)?
Is there a specific instruction manual for this?
If not, are there any known issues to be wary of?
Is it possible to be compiling Gentoo in chroot in one console, and working on something else in the old distro on a
different console?
Even if it's the Xorg console?
Is there any chance for the chroot and old distro to come into conflict over /swap?

Hey, at least I know enough to know what questions to ask
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Nothing to see here. Move along.

[NeddySeagoon]

wolfger,

There are additional instructions here see the Knoppix option for an example. All you need are the tools to get you inside the chroot.

You cannot cross install from a 32 bit to 64 bit system as you will have a 32 bit kernel from your existing install, which will not support the 64 bit stage 3 software.

Your can be doing the install in the chroot and other things in the host distro other places. This is encoraged - you can be on line reading the install manual for example.

swap is managed by the host system kernel. You will only run one kernel at a time, so conflicts over swap will not arise.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[wolfger]