new to gentoo

pelanor · n00b Joined: 13 Oct 2007 Posts: 3

ok guys

Im at my wits end here. I am new to linux but I found this old computer and I thought it would be neat to install gentoo on it and see if I couldnt ween myself off of windows.

I think the only piece of the machine that is propietary is the bios. It says "IBM Aptiva" when it boots up but thats it.
So I think my hardware should run linux. The rest of it is normal gear: amd k-6 233 with 64M sdram and an 8gig hdd.

When I try to boot from either the 2006 and the 2007 livecd, the computer reboots its self ( a common problem I have read here on the forums) but it seems to do well when I install from the "minimal" 2006 cd. But the problem is that when I get it installed far enough into the shell (livecd root #) is that the tarball is not on the cd. I was following the installation instructions from the 2007 guide (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=5) but I get stopped cold when the instructions tell you to download the stage tarball. This computer isnt hooked up to the internet yet :/

But if I try to eject the minimal 2006 cd and put either of the live cds in there ( to try to copy the tarball to the hdd or just unpack it) my cd rom light flashes red meaning ( i think) that the computer is running the OS from the cd and it wont let me swap out any cds.

Im not sure if I am running a version that is too new for this system.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

WakkaDojo · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject:

What you could do is modify the minimal cd iso to include a directory with the downloadable tars you need, which I believe is just stage 3 and portage. Since the livecd isn't as stable as the minimal install cd, you're better off just using the minimal install.

cyrillic · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:26 pm Post subject: Re: new to gentoo

Pithlit · l33t Joined: 27 Dec 2003 Posts: 887 Location: fuhen

Since Gentoo can be installed from within an existing linux installation...

-please keep in mind I'm making this up since I have _no_ idea if it would work...-

Get appropriate guide from the Gentoo site and read on it. Might shed some light on the subject before you venture on. Now... your ram is really low but... Get DSL (damn small linux) live CD and make it load itself into RAM so now you should have a working Linux environment _as well as_ a free CD-ROM you can put your Gentoo cd in (or cd's...). Again - I have no idea if this can even work...
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pelanor · n00b Joined: 13 Oct 2007 Posts: 3

WakkaDojo: makes alot of sense, thanks for posting that info

Im thinking the best way to go about installing, is to load the minimal cd, till I can get to the shell and then copy the tarball from a seperate cd to the hdd and install from there. Which leads me to another odd problem I am encountering.

When i boot from the cd and gentoo fires up, it has a problem with IRQ 14. the exact quote of the install is:

Disabling IRQ #14
irq #14: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)
handlers:
(c02c7b78)
Disabling IRQ #14

now, ive tried rebooting and load with the "gentoo -irqpoll" option but that doesnt seem to work.
the installer attempts to disable it about once a minute for 10 minutes. it then loads from there.
My question is: am I doing the load option correctly? and, is it a hardware or a software problem? I looked at the board in an attempt to find a jumper or something for irq 14, but My search yielded nothing
thanks again

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject:

pelanor,

Theres no - on kernel options, which is what irqpoll is.

pelanor · n00b Joined: 13 Oct 2007 Posts: 3

thanks for all the help guys!

I am well on my way to becoming a linux user, but I have one last question
i installed using the 2006 minimum boot cd and untar'ed stage3-x86-2006.1.tar.bz2 on my hdd.

the last step seems to be unpacking portage. but can I use the latest portage with this system? even though i installed the 2006 version..
I am in the process of downloading portage and putting it on my new system but im kinda stuck on which one to download

thanks again

OneOfMany · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:44 pm Post subject:

You always want the current portage. That is the list of current versions of programs that can be installed. You don't want to be stuck using old, buggy software do you? Generally to update all the installed stuff on your computer you'll periodically run "emerge --sync && emerge -uD world" or some variation of that. I often use "emerge -puD world" before I issue the second command to make sure I don't have to uninstall a package to allow an upgrade of something else.

BTW a couple useful commands in linux are "man" and "info" that you can find out about programs with. For instance to learn more about emerge you could run "man emerge".

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:10 am Post subject:

pelanor,

Get the latest portage snapshot but with a stage tarball as old as yours there is a trick you may need.

When you run emerge system or emerge world for the first time you will get a message saying that there is a new version of portage available and its strongly reccomened you emerge it now. *DONT do it*

The latest portage version has dependancies on things you don't have installed yet. Update portage only after you have updated your install with