Super Newb to Gentoo - contemplating an install - have Q's

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

Hi,

Sorry for the lame newbie question. I'm very intrigued by Gentoo but that intrigue has been somewhat deflated at something I read. Now maybe wikipedia is not the most reliable source of information, I get that. That's why I've come here to state my concern and get some feedback that is more accurate and reliable.

I've been contemplating my next project; and, for what it is, it has been suggested to me by a couple folks to check out Gentoo. Preliminary information I received about Gentoo was that it is highly configurable and customizable. Later, as I read through information given on the wikipedia page for Gentoo the information seemed, at first, to support that conclusion. However, when I came to a section entitled "Stages" and what followed that through to the end, I began to wonder if Gentoo hasn't changed from what it started out to be. Changed in such a way as to no longer be as customizable; and, now, much closer to all the other distributions (they make the choices for you and you install what they give you).

What led to this concern is the notion that a Stage 1 build is no longer possible, nor a Stage 2, but that a Stage 3 (which is the lowest available 'and supported') is defined as be all compiled for you (easy peasy, no more choices to make). I want to be sure whether this information is correct though and whether my interpretation of it is correct or not. I truly hope it is not or that there is something I have missed with will allow me to believe I can have the level of control over this distro that I truly desire.

This is my first post on this forum. Please please forgive me if I have come across as rude or arrogant in any way. That was never my intention. I only felt that I needed to be straight forward enough about what was on my heart to really address my question properly. I believe that Gentoo, as well as many other Linux distros, is a lovely Linux. It's just that I am searching for particular distribution for an even more particular use and I want to be certain I make the best choice before a huge investment of time. Whichever distro I settle on for this project I will likely be with it for some time to come, so this is a fairly important concern for me.

Thanks so very much for taking the time to read this. I appreciate any clarification and advice you can offer.

Reference to that wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux

Sincerely,
Jake

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

Clearly that wikipedia article is either blatantly wrong or grossly insufficient. Managed to find the Gentoo Manual and it's pretty obvious Gentoo is everything I thought it would be - and probably a lot more too.

Sorry to waste your time. My mistake.

Jake

John R. Graham · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:54 am Post subject:

@ClientAlive, welcome to Gentoo! It's the people that are willing to read that do the best here.

As I think you've discovered by now, there's absolutely no difference in the ultimate configurability, optimizability, or sheer tweakability of a stage3 installed Gentoo vs. the old deprecated stage1 install. Furthermore, with the addition of one simple command to the end of the install process,

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

Right on. Thanks John. I appreciate it man.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:40 pm Post subject:

ClientAlive,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Once upon a time, the stage1 install made it very easy to optimise for any AMD/Intel 32 bit CPU at the expense of build time.
The stage1 was supplied for the i386.

Since that time, glibc has dropped i386 support, as has Gentoo. As there are very few 486 and 586 still in use at all, never mind for Gentoo, stage1 and stage2 are no longer provided.
You can still use a stage3 tarball to do the stage1 steps if you wish. The scripts are still maintained and provided in the stage3. You will find the documentation around the web too.

At the time support for stage1 and stage2 were dropped, they simply provided more opportunity for error than the stage3 with no gain to end users.

The bottom line is that Gentoo exposes all the controls that binary distros hide from you and demands that you use them. Gentoo is really a toolkit for making your own dostro. A simple view of it would be Linux From Scratch with a package manager.

I can confirm that stage1 and stage2 still work as they are used by Gentoo Release Engineering to build the minimal ISO files and the weekly auto build stage3 files
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I hope this isn't out of line, but I wonder if I can share my plans with you briefly and maybe get your take on it. I love input from others on these kind of things. As a relative newb to Linux it keeps me out of a lot of trouble and helps me see what the right thing is to focus on.

My intention is to build a Xen platform on that desktop. I didn't want to just go with the first bloated distro I could find though, just because it made things easier for me. I want to learn and I like the challenges - they are what keep me motivated; and, I think, provide the best learning opportunities that can be found. So, after hearing a couple people suggest it, I thought Gentoo would be a great start to the Xen project. One of the things I wonder about though is any challenges I might run into by choosing Gentoo as my domU o/s. I read a little about it on Xen's site and saw some info on something called Paravirt Opps, which I gather is some functionality they started building into the Linux kernel a few releases ago. Seemed to me this would probably be the route I'd have to take. Still reading into it though, so not sure if there may be other, better routes available to me. Also, I wonder if there are any specific things that come up with people using Gentoo with Xen. Inevitably I will end up reading about all of it sooner or later but I wonder what your take on it is.

Some basic info on that desktop machine:

* HP Pavilion a1253w (a media center machine - yuck! Well, it was. Still has the 6 in 1 or 7 in 1 or whatever it is, card reader in it though.)
* CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (a dual core? I think.) Socket 939 - (a diagnostic tool I have calls it an AMD 486 SX @ 2200 MHz)??
* RAM: 512 mb Soon to be 1 GB, possibly 1.5 (I hope, if I get the RAM in the mail I'm hoping for)
* HDD: 1 X WD 80 GB ide drive and 1 X Maxtor 100 GB ide drive
Mobo: Amberine RS482 SB400

Anyhoo . . . I'd love to hear your comments about all this.

Thanks.
Jake
-----------------------------------

Edit:

Well, here's the /proc/cpuinfo though. It doesn't read that same as the info that diagnostic tool gave. I'm confused, but, whatever . . .

idella4 · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 2:58 pm Post subject:

hi

Neddy sent me. I have worked xen extensively.
Your hardware is similar to what I have been using.
There are extensive docs on xen at both gentoo wiki and the xen source site.
Gentoo offers the learning curve and the support to get it to work.
Follow the guides. It first gets you to fully update your system with a cflag or two to bent your gentoo to running xen as a host.
Re-post when ready
_________________
idella4@aus

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

idella4 · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:58 am Post subject:

Chiitoo · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 8:36 am Post subject:

Just wanted to say a welcome as well as to testify on the possibilities to customise and tweak the system, as you have vastly noticed by now, no doubt. ^^
And also, please do not feel bad about asking questions or for opinions here, as I see it, the forum is a vital part of Gentoo itself. As long as one puts effort into at least reading the manual(s), the handbook especially in the installation-phase, and actually listens to what the great people here offer to them, one will surely be fine and a welcomed addition to the community. :]

Without going into a long post about my personal experiences, in a few months, I will have been using Gentoo as my main OS, in a desktop computer which I use for everything I do, be it gaming, video-processing, just anything really, and I have not missed windoze at all. Yes, I actually tried Ubuntu once or trice in the past, but never really got into it. It did not teach me Linux.
When I really seriously got into Gentoo (tried it before on some secondary, lower machines too but didn't really hit it off with that) I really started to learn Linux, and I really am glad I found out about it (don't remember how that happened).

If I were to ever go for another distro, I'm guessing it would be Arch, as I have read it is very similar to what Gentoo provides, but I think Gentoo is more for me in the end, after all...

Anyways, just some thoughts!
Good luck, I'm sure you'll have lots of great experiences stored with Gentoo.
Do heed this fair word of warning though: Be wary of emerge, it has been known to be able to make people addicted...
_________________
Kindest of regardses.

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

Right on. Thanks guys. I''m currently reading an ebook about Xen (kinda older, from like 2007 I think) and the user manual for Gentoo (and Googling where it counts). I would already be working the steps but I'm a little concerned that 512 mb of RAM isn't gonna cut it and that's all I have in that desktop right now.

I'm working on getting a little more for it (I think I'd be comfortable with 1 GB but 2 would be plush) but it's a frustrating situation. On the one hand I don't want to wait too long to get going on this and on the other I don't want to invest a lot of time and effort into something that's doomed to fail because of low resources - to top it all off, the type of memory that machine uses is really expensive and for a badly outdated type of RAM. I think my best bet is to look for cheap used ram for it. Hope I can find it cheap enough that I can afford it (I'm talking like $10).

Once again, very frustrating situation. I'll definitely be around the forums here as I'm determined to do this thing with Gentoo. I want very much to post in this thread about the amazing success I have with Xen on Gentoo (hopefully it will be) but it might be a bit before I can get my machine prepared to support such a thing.

Anyone wanna sell some PC3200? Just kidding (well, sort of)... :wink:

John R. Graham · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:20 am Post subject:

eBay is probably your friend. I successfully completed a Gentoo install on a 90MHz Pentium I machine with 80MiB of RAM. I'm not saying it's optimal, but 512MiB is more than adequate. Look at the minimal hardware requirements quoted in the Handbook: you're good to go!

- John
_________________
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idella4 · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:44 pm Post subject:

ClientAlive

512 mb total to host vms is not really anywhere near sufficient. You have to leave a half or so for the host, that leaves you 250mb to run vms??
You have really defined a very narrow path to tread.

memory sticks coat is hardly prohibitive. 2 G is more realistic, then how many vms do you intend to run concurrently?? 1 to 3 is fine; beyond that the resources taken by gui and the like become an issue.

Step 1, install a gentoo host. Step 2, equip it properly to be a xen dom0. Step 3, configure compile and boot a xen kernel effectively with a xen compataible graphics driver, then you can step 4 boot a xen guest.

That is quite a long way from where you are currently positioned.
_________________
idella4@aus

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:35 pm Post subject:

ClientAlive,

As idella4 says, you can do a lot of useful work with what you have now. It will run in in 512Mb but yor DomU may be too slow to be useful because of all the swapping. You won't know until you try.

You can do a RAM update at any time. Don't buy RAM until you have a Dom0 running and have tried a DOMU.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

John R. Graham · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:22 am Post subject:

And you can start your Gentoo install before the new memory arrives. :wink:

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

idella4 · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 7:01 am Post subject:

get cracking
memory is just stuff you add to a slot in the motherboard.
you have enough to start an install and that takes a good while first time
_________________
idella4@aus

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

I got my hands on all these great expansion cards (even a wireless NIC). Now I need to understand whether drivers are something contained within the kernel or are in user space; and, more specifically what I'll be looking to do to ensure everything ends up working properly. What I mean is a general direction on going about it. With a general direction/ understanding of how to approach it I can use that general information to find the specific information I need and can ultimately make it work for me.

Also, the reason I'm asking about this now is I would prefer to look into it a little before getting in the middle or through to the end of some compilation and find out there is something I didn't do right. Rather than waste effort I would prefer to do a little homework and try to get it right the first time round.

Thanks fellas.

Veldrin · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:07 am Post subject:

In general, all drivers run in kernel mode, and most of the are contained in the stock kernel. Some cannot be run in the kernel (namely ntfs3g) and are piped though userspace (via FUSE) at cost of performance, while other have not mad it into the kernel yet.

To find out how well it is supported by linux, take the model name (or even chip name if you know what it is based on) and search in google with the additional term linux.
this should give you some idea about if it works and of how well.

For wireless cards, I know the following: Intel and Atheros are well supported, Ralink it relatively new, but also well supported, Broadcom has cause more than one headache, especially because the some constellations do not work, while other with a very similar chip work. the rest unknown.
For gigabit ethernet nics, I know the following: Intel and Broadcom are well supported, Realtek too, but the chips then to be flacky. the rest unknown.

If you tell us what you are looking for, we can give you a hint.

V.
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If my answer is too concise, ask for an explanation.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:41 am Post subject:

ClientAlive,

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33

John R. Graham · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 12:13 am Post subject:

This is beginning to remind me of the joke about the woman who had been married three times before but confessed to her 4th husband on their wedding night that she was still a virgin.

"How could that be?" her husband asked.
"Well, my first husband was a body builder; he was only interested in his body, not mine. After that, I married a kind man who turned out to be gay. He wasn't interested in my body either. And my third husband was a software engineer."
"Software engineer! What's that got to do with anything?" her husband cried.
"Well, all he ever did was sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how good it was going to be when we finally did it."

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

ClientAlive · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2011 Posts: 33