Need recommendations for installing Gentoo on old laptop

nalin · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:29 pm Post subject:

it sounds like something that might be caused by using "nano" rather then "nano -w" (the first will wrap lines of its own accord, which breaks files in /etc), or by forgeting a quote (probably and endquote?).
MirrorSelect failure is not of importance here, it speeds up downloads but has no effect on installing gentoo other then spped increase.
If I were you I would grab the make.conf from the boot disk, reedit it with nano -w to have appropriate USE and CFLAGS. Alternatively you could take a look at your make.conf and look for lines that sould not have wrapped, and double check quotes on all lines. Also make sure there is nowhere where a variable is declared and nothing follows (ie "CFLAGS="), which might be the case for MIRRORS (it might be called something else)

Archaic · n00b Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 28

When I used nano, I made sure to use it with the -w trigger, so I don't think that's it. I know you say MirrorSelect is of no importance, but I know it edits make.conf, and that's the only item that touched it so far in the install, so....*Shrugs*

Archaic · n00b Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 28

Well, a few tests by the local store later, and the earlier suspicion was confirmed. Some bad sectors have developed on the Laptop HDD, and there's a good chance of it failing soon. It's looking like I'm going to have to get a new Drive at the very least. In any case, it looks like my Linux ambitions are over for now because of this, so before I go, I'd just like to say thanks to everyone on these forums who tried to help me out with this. Your assistance was most appreciated. I just wish I could've got Gentoo working properly at least once. Next time, I ask the anime club's resident Linux nerd to install it for me.

Pete_Keller · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 1:48 pm Post subject:

Archaic,

Why ask the "linux nerd" (you make that sound like a bad thing

) to install it for you? why not ask him to assist you in installing it, that way you learn more.

Try looking around for a new (or used) laptop HDD

Pete
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