Gentoo Linux -- Tackle it

I get bored sometimes and I like to try and tackle something challenging just for the fun of it so I started working with Gentoo linux last night to see if I could get it installed. I got about half way through and ran into two or three problems. One being my partitions seem to have gotten corrupted half way through the installation and the second time I couldn't get the tar files to uncompress without getting some errors which stopped it from completing. I will eventually get it and I'm sure if you have a decent amount of knowledge anyone can eventually get it done. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a thread for people wanting to tackle Gentoo.


Gentoo Linux Official Site
www.gentoo.org

Download Gentoo Linux (and other distro's)
http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=45

You will need at least Disk 1. I assume most of you will want the Pentium 4 GRP Install Disk(s) or the Athlon XP GRP Install Disk(s).

Installation Instructions (for x86 users -- thats for most of you)
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml

Comment: If you don't know whether you fall under x86 I honestly suggest you don't try to install Gentoo because you need to learn a bit more. No offence but you don't want a huge headache over this for nothing. (Although that Gentoo loading screen when you boot from the CD is pretty durn cool I have to say so it might be worth checking that out).

You can also install Gentoo on a MAC if you wish by downloading the PPC Disk's here http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=45 and consulting the PPC installation instructions
here http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-install.xml

Yes, i tried to install Gentoo back when i didnt know anything. I printed the entire install manual and still couldnt get it right...its very difficult. But Gentoo is a powerful OS once installed, updates and packages at the type of a command.

Portage system rocks.

Gentoo is pretty tough to install, but if you start with a stage 3 tarball it should be fairly straightforward. I do love the portage system though. One of these days I'm going to install it again on a system just to play around with it some more :)

--deus

Deus, I started out with 3 then gave 1 a try.

I know that whatever I did wrong was just a stupid mistake each time I tried and it's going to take a few times to get it right but I'll eventually get it :-P.

Of course, if you can tell me exactly everything to type and save me the time that would be even better :-P.

Uh...I installed Slackware and got it right easy, and it's a whole lot harder than Gentoo...and it's quite a bit better as well:

http://www.slackware.com

I thought that Gentoo was harder than Slackware. Slackware is not bad at all.

These things are interesting, but if you want to get into UNIX, I would just install Red Hat or Mandrake and start looking at what it actually does, how it works, etc.

It wasn't so much about learning Linux, but more that I wanted to just give Gentoo a try, curiosity mostly.

We decided to run Red Hat on a PC at work, and I am running Linux most of the time on at least one PC at home.

oh, i dare say if you get that (gentoo) working just fine you will learn a bit - you will certainly sharpen your UNIX skills.

I installed gentoo on my first try a long time ago. I adore it.

wicka wicka, what are you talking about? If you call slackware more difficult to install than gentoo, you've never even attempted to install gentoo.

Gentoo is by far my favorite distrobution.

Yes, Gentoo is very hard to install, and very time consuming as your compiling well the entire OS lol.

Slackware can be installed in like 10 minutes, very simple.

Im running mandrake, and am loving it so far.

i just installed mandrake and found it very easy and have had only minor problems (w/ mouse and such).

my friend is a very computer savy person and he just tried installing gentoo and he failed miserably. he had to get someone else to install it for him. so yeah, apparently it's pretty hard.
i use mandrake at home and red hat at school and i like them both. they do what i need just fine.

Yea, RH and Mandrake are pretty easy distro's to install. Also very easy to dual boot a Windows installation with both. Easier if you install Windows first though since Windows will install it's own bootloader over Linux's.

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
I installed gentoo on my first try a long time ago. I adore it.

wicka wicka, what are you talking about? If you call slackware more difficult to install than gentoo, you've never even attempted to install gentoo.

Gentoo is by far my favorite distrobution.

I'd say you're right, but then again ya gotta wonder why I get Gnoppix confused with Gentoo.../smacks self.

No I've never tried Gentoo but it seems that I'm gonna have to now ;) Slack is working fine for me tho.

If the Linux you have is working for you, there's much to say for sticking with it and learning more about UNIX, rather than learning how to install more operating systems. But then, that's fun too, so you could always do both.

Quoth the dreamer,

"Linux is the future"

And speaking of gentoo, I installed it tonight from stage 1 on an athlon xp 2000+ machine w/512mb PC2100. It's now running beautifully, compiling kde.

Wow, I just talked to one big Linux-know-it-all guy, and he told me even he couldn't get Gentoo installed...I think I'll pass on that...

I've been into UNIX for 5 years and probably am shortly going to get a job working with it, and I thought Gentoo was... well, not hard as such, more awkward.

Personally, when viewing the finished product, I didn't really see the advantage. You can doctor a red hat install to the extent that its just as tweaked, and all you will basically learn is how to work the gentoo installer, which is all text based pretty much. I'd be more likely to recommend that you get a good linux on your machine that will support all of your hardware well, and then learn to work it - start messing with Apache, Tomcat, programming in C and C++, BASH, learning how to alter scripts, etc. That's going to teach you more (much!) and going to do you better then basically learning to install some obscure OS that you will probably never see again outside of your own PC.

However, as an exercise in OS hacking, its a good bit of fun if you have the patience. Personally, after fooling with it for most of a weekend, I decided to stick with Red Hat, Slackware and Mandrake.

Originally posted by Phantasm66
I've been into UNIX for 5 years and probably am shortly going to get a job working with it, and I thought Gentoo was... well, not hard as such, more awkward.

Personally, when viewing the finished product, I didn't really see the advantage. You can doctor a red hat install to the extent that its just as tweaked, and all you will basically learn is how to work the gentoo installer, which is all text based pretty much. I'd be more likely to recommend that you get a good linux on your machine that will support all of your hardware well, and then learn to work it - start messing with Apache, Tomcat, programming in C and C++, BASH, learning how to alter scripts, etc. That's going to teach you more (much!) and going to do you better then basically learning to install some obscure OS that you will probably never see again outside of your own PC.

However, as an exercise in OS hacking, its a good bit of fun if you have the patience. Personally, after fooling with it for most of a weekend, I decided to stick with Red Hat, Slackware and Mandrake.

That isn't the point. The point is the optimization level potential far exceeds other distros and, once installed, gentoo is incredibly easy to keep fully up to date.

One simple command, emerge -u world, and suddenly your entire system is now fully patched with all current bug fixes and security fixes.

And gentoos installer isn't an installer - It's about as close to LFS as you're going to get. Basically it is giving you a shell, some tools, and a tar'ed base... then of course it gives you emerge.. theoretically you could use it just as easily to prep any linux installation. I personally use my gentoo liveCD as a rescue disc for my other machines.

You raise some interesting points, which as a computer enthusiast and a UNIX enthusiast, I do take on board.

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
...gentoo is incredibly easy to keep fully up to date.

One simple command, emerge -u world, and suddenly your entire system is now fully patched with all current bug fixes and security fixes.

Red Hat, Debian, even FreeBSD have exactly similar things. I would say that that's not a benefit of gentoo - its a benefit of open source software. With lots of legal barriers broken down, we can provide systems that are as efficient at updating and patching as windowsupdate.microsoft.com , but are there to provide updates for ALL of your installed system - word processors and programming tools and source code - in one go - NOT JUST the OS. But these things are a feature of linux in general, and the open source movement - not something which gentoo exclusively brings.

Red Carpet, an update delivery tool for XIMIAN GNOME, which installs on several Linuxes, has an excellent graphical interface and command line tool.

Doesn't Debian have apt-get... that update tool that you just point at some server and don't have to worry any more??


I am interested to know why you said this:


That isn't the point. The point is the optimization level potential far exceeds other distros and, once installed, gentoo is incredibly easy to keep fully up to date.


I am not contesting, agreeing or disagreeing, but could you elaborate further??? If there's something interesting I am not aware of, I will gladly install this OS again. I always keep an open mind with computers. I've been very surprised before with some things.

Yeah Phantasm, I think I'm gonna stick with Slackware from now on...as for programming I'm gonna learn Python probably, because it is pretty easy and yet quite powerful.

That sounds like a good plan. Look at Perl as well, that would be nice.

Yeah, that'll be later on...oh wait:
http://hardware.localhost.nl/index.php?ct=nothing&pic=/pictures/Miscellaneous/****_mod_perl.jpg

Hehe...yeah, I found this page called How to Be a Hacker (not that kind of hacker, you're probably thinking cracker) that listed some good programming languages to learn...here's the link to that (it's actually a good read):
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Funnily enough, I read that very document for the first time today.

Wait, you mean you read it before I posted it?

I mean I happened upon that very document (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html) for the first time just today.

It was hosted on a different server, but I was reading it just today. It was a good read.

But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for you — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well.

Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.

If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.


Its got a good message. Basically.... get to grips with some powerful stuff like C++ and UNIX, but use it in a mature and adult fashion. That's what a "hacker" is - a "cracker" however is a person who uses these things to do malicious damage, basically being a stupid kid. Learn to be a "hacker" - a geek with a keen mind and a powerful grasp of computing, and use it in a positive and interesting, fruitful way, that benefits the whole computing community.

Sorry about going off topic, but he did ask.





Originally posted by Soul Harvester And gentoos installer isn't an installer - It's about as close to LFS as you're going to get. Basically it is giving you a shell, some tools, and a tar'ed base... then of course it gives you emerge.. theoretically you could use it just as easily to prep any linux installation. I personally use my gentoo liveCD as a rescue disc for my other machines.

I am sure that Debian does this as well - basically, you can download an image for a floppy disk, boot from it, use it to get your system prepped for an installation, and then it downloads source code and compiles everything for you, following exactly your specifications.

This gives you a lot of control over what sort of OS you are building up, but at the same time, makes it harder and less attractive for people to write compatible applications, drivers, etc for the OS in question.

A lot of hardware manufacturers only offer Linux drivers for very stablished, market leaders like Red Hat, etc. Sometimes, they only support the stock kernel that was installed as part of the "out of the box" install - i.e. you can't use a kernel you have compiled by hand. Certainly, a RAID controller card I just got from Promise had exactly this problem, and only wanted to work with the stock kernel that came along with Red Hat 9.

Even although I might get shot for this, I sometimes think that Linux (with all of its different distros) is too diverse, and could benefit from some consolidation.

Yeah, after I read that article I was like, "Hey. I'm 75% hacker!" So I decided to 1. Use Linux (instead of Windows) and 2. Learn some more programming.

Don't waste any more time not getting STUCK RIGHT INTO PROGRAMMING, especially C++, Java, C#, etc. I deeply regret neglecting it for a while. Look to perl, php, etc as well, but only to suppliment C++, which if you are learning to program, is truly the way forward.

C++, when combined with an operating system like Linux, being heavily UNIX based, is a very powerful combination, and you can start to do some very interesting things.

Sorry, off topic again I know.....

I'm starting out with Python :D .

If you are using Slackware, try installing dropline gnome - its got a nice dropline-installer program that can automatically get updates, etc.

But my favourate update delivery system is still red carpet from Ximian Gnome.

Cool, I'll look into that :)