Considering Switching To Gentoo, But I Have A Couple Questions...

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Well, I'm on the verge of doing some major formats/reinstallations on my HD's and I figured it's a good time to re-evaluate my OS choices and see if I want to try anything new out. I'm heavily considering Gentoo currently. I've always wanted to at least try it out but it always seemed kind of daunting so I never got around to it. While I have some linux experience I am far from adept in it so I never really got to the point where I just said "alright I'm gonna do it"Until now.So I know alot of the linux users here run Gentoo or have used it at some point so I have a few questions I was wondering if you guys could answer for me...a)Does portage (I believe that's what it is called) do a good job at software management/aquisition? I am one of the people who prefer not to have to deal with dependency issues if at all possible. As far as I can tell, you just use the emerge command and give a app name and it handles everything for you... is that accurate?b)How strict are the initial partitioning requirements for it? I was skimming over the installation handbook and it basically said you need 3 primary partitions to use on a drive for it... not sure if I can have that currently and it may be a pain to set it up like that (do-able, but if its not necessary I thought I'd check to save effort)c)Is there anything really important that someone should consider before installing Gentoo?I've used multiple linux distros before, but none were ones that took much knowledge of linux (Redhat/fedora, mandrake, mepis, ubuntu, suse, etc) So I was hoping to make the move to gentoo. I'm willing to put in the time to learn how to things 'the gentoo way' I just don't want to get smacked down before I even get underway haha. Figure I may as well check my concerns now while I haven't done anything drastic yet.Thanks for your help, and if you have any random Gentoo comments or want to give reasons why I should or shouldn't move to Gentoo, fire away.

[yordan 10]

it basically said you need 3 primary partitions to use on a drive for it... not sure if I can have that currently

No, you don't really need to have three partitions before starting the installation. You simply need some free space on your disk (I guess from 1 giga to 3 giga free). So, if you have no free space, delete the last partition of your disk, or shrink your last partition in order to leave some free (unpartitionned) space.
then you will install Linux, and the install program will create the necessary partitions.
Of course, Linux nees several partions (at least the / partition and the swap partition), but the partition creation will simply be a part of Linux installation.
By the way, if you want to communicate data between Linux and Microsoft Windows, may I also syggest that one of your Windows partition should be a FAT32 partition, so both the Windows and the Linux operating systems will be able to read and write on that partition.
By the way, what I am saying here is general system information, it's not typically limited to Gentoo.
Regards

Yordan

[abhiram 0]

Alright, it's nice to see someone willing to try something new. Let me tell you that I was a Slackware user before coming to Gentoo and I had to keep going back to Windows for some stuff. But after I started using Gentoo sometimes it's even weeks before I reboot into Windows. I've been using Gentoo for 5 months now and it's simply amazing.

Ok, now, coming to your questions ...

a)Does portage (I believe that's what it is called) do a good job at software management/aquisition? I am one of the people who prefer not to have to deal with dependency issues if at all possible. As far as I can tell, you just use the emerge command and give a app name and it handles everything for you... is that accurate?

It is the best software management utility. I would say it's better than apt-get or yum or any other thing software manager because there has NEVER been any dependency problem till now for any package I've used.

b)How strict are the initial partitioning requirements for it? I was skimming over the installation handbook and it basically said you need 3 primary partitions to use on a drive for it... not sure if I can have that currently and it may be a pain to set it up like that (do-able, but if its not necessary I thought I'd check to save effort)

That's not required. You only need 2 partitions - one for installing the system and one for swap. The handbook assumes you want to install boot in a separate partition. I don't know if there's any advantage by doing like that, but I prefer to have only one partition for everything ... especially since the space I've got for Linux is kinda limited right now (approx 17GB). It is not difficult to do at all. I would advice you to keep some decent amount of space for Linux. 7GB should be comfortable for a decent system, but if you've got more, it's always better.

Just one suggestion, when you come to the part of partitioning, use 'cfdisk' instead of 'fdisk'. It's got a more intuitive feel to it. fdisk uses the CLI (Command Line Interface), but cfdisk has a nice interface for partitioning.

c)Is there anything really important that someone should consider before installing Gentoo?

YES!!!! PATIENCE! And make it a point to read the handbook completely. There are some points which you can skip like about the networking and stuff, but be sure to just skim through it once so that you don't miss something very vital. There's a lot of food for thought in the handbook but the Gentoo documentation is the best you'll ever come across. And also, the user community is very good.

The installation will take some time and also, you may not get it right the first time round. But keep at it, and you'll get it eventually. To install the base system, for one who's well versed with the handbook, it takes 4-5 hours. And that'll get you only upto the command line from where you'll have to install X, KDE, ALSA and everything. But, once it's up and running, you'll realise the actual power of Gentoo B-).

For example, how many distros let you install quake3 arena with:

emerge quake3

Feel free to ask any questions here in the forum. I had qwijibow help me out with Gentoo when I started out. I'm pretty sure you can count on him as well.

[hatim 0]

i corroborate every thing said above :I would like to list pros and cons of using gentoo (i have been using it since March 2003)Pros:-You will learn alot about linux, with RH and Ubuntu you will be shielded from alot of info (which makes sense as they target towards a bit user friendly system)-You will have a very customized system , fine tuned in every sense -You can boast ..that you have a Stage 1 install of gentoo ..a plus point for GeeksCons:-You will have to setup every thing. And some times you just want things to work ..like i had to spend alot of time setting up a rare HP Printer on Gentoo whereas it works out of the box in Ubuntu.-Your system will be fine tuned ..but there is no gurantee what can happen to it as no one has tested the kernel and apps rigirously. In case of CentOS or RH the things are tested (atleast thats whats my impression) rigirouslyWell i would recomend that you install gentoo if you have time on your hand and want to learn about linux. But if you are just looking for a good distibution , go for Ubuntu. Gentoo is like a sports car ..you can have one and ride it for personal use..but would not like a fleet of them as it would cost you alot (in this case time)

[qwijibow 0]

-Your system will be fine tuned ..but there is no gurantee what can happen to it as no one has tested the kernel and apps rigirously

i disagree.

gentoo uses masks to control how bleeding edge / how stable you ant your system to be.

you may have trouble with the ~ARCH masks (where arch is x86, amd64 or Ppc) these are more upto-date, but still in testing.

but most people go with the default mask (x86 / amd64 / ppc ) which is quite well tested.

and in the rare occasion there is a bug, it is usually fixed quite quickly.. more often that not, the bug is fixed by the time you find it, and an update with "emerge --sync" will correct the issue.

i had to spend alot of time setting up a rare HP Printer on Gentoo whereas it works out of the box in Ubuntu.

This is true, but sometimes, because of gentoo's bleeding edge design, the problem is the opposite way round. For Example....I recently bought a new wireless card. There is a driver for this card, but it is not yet in the linux kernel.

the card is based on the rt2500 chipset.

in other distro's, to get this card working you need to install the kernel source code, patch the kernel source code, then build the driver, linking it againsed the current tunning kernel source code /binaries.

in gentoo, to get this card installed, all i had to do was

emerge rt2500

To cut a long story short, Gentoo is like Marmite.
Nobody just likes Gentoo, You will either Love it, and never go back to any other distro (like me)
Or you will absolutly hate it.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Awesome about the partition information, I have a sizeable partition (20-30gig and a half gig swap or something) for my current linux install so that'll work fine, I just didn't want to have to mess with my other partition sizes too much.Another question, how far along in the sequence before you could hypothetically stop and boot into another OS, and pick up the install the next day? I just have to work everyday so I'd be doing this piece by piece at night when I have a block of free time to kill.Not sure when I'll get to start this, but I hope it will be soon. I'm psyched hehe.

[abhiram 0]

Another question, how far along in the sequence before you could hypothetically stop and boot into another OS, and pick up the install the next day? I just have to work everyday so I'd be doing this piece by piece at night when I have a block of free time to kill.

Actually, you can stop at any time and pick it up again the next day since you'll be working with a Gentoo LiveCD in any case. But everytime you stop in the middle, the next time you restart your computer, you have to remember the following steps:

1. Setup the network
2. Mount the required partitions
3. Chroot into the partition you're working on
4. Update environment
5. Pick it up again where you left it the last time

But, what I would suggest is this:

1. First Day: Configure it upto the part where you have to chroot into the environment.
2. Second Day: Configure it upto the part where you are asked to exit from the chrooted environment and reboot into your new installation.
3. Third Day: Boot into your system and start setting up stuff from the Desktop Documentation Resources (X, ALSA, KDE) and you don't have to switch it off anymore.

The time you take for each one depends on how you do the installation. Since I've read the handbook umpteen number of times (I still can't do a thing without referring to it all the time ), I can complete the first 2 steps in 5-6 hours.

The time taken in the third step depends on your internet connection speed, your processor and your RAM.

Maybe it'll be best if you start on it on a Friday evening (Geeks don't get dates ... duh) so that you can set it up to install KDE in the night and you'll have the system up and running in the morning . That's what I would do.

Hope this helps you out.
Have fun with Gentoo .

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Awesmome guys, thanks for the info I'll be sure to let you know when I'm starting and if I have more questions hehe

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Alright, tonight is the night haha. Well hopefully anyways.I was reading through the installation handbook so I knew what to expect and I was wondering about one thing. I am going to be installing Gentoo on my second harddrive, and have grub installed on the master drive to boot my various OS's. Would it be best just to skip the grub installation for gentoo and add gentoo to the grub conf file for my current grub loader? I figure since it's not the master drive it wouldn't theoretically ever even load gentoo's grub install, would it?

[abhiram 0]

I guess that should be just fine. Since you'll be marking only one hard disk as bootable in BIOS, I guess it makes sense to just make changes to the grub loader on your main disk.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Awesome. I don't mind messing around with things trying to figure them out on my own, but I just want to be able to get the install to a point where I can restart the computer and log into the distro so it's officially "installed" before I run into too many major issues. Plus I know I'll feel a need to push forward until I log in the first time after a reboot without chrooting in. After that I'll just work on it whenever I have some spare time, but until then I'm going to probably want to get through it as efficiently as possible until I know everything worked (or not) haha.Anyways, thanks again for the help.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

It is done...sort of ;)Since you guys were nice enough to help I figure I'll keep you updated on my progress.About 7:30 or so last night I started the gentoo install process. I had my partitions setup mostly before and went in guns blazing. I followed the handbook and everything went relatively smoothly. My network detected and setup automatically and I was on my way. It seemed alot more intuitive then I had actually thought it would be, not sure if I just knew more then I thought or had picked up more skimming over the documentation beforehand.By about 10:30 or 11 it was time to reboot the system. I probably could have even shrunk the time down a bit more but I watched tv while things were happening to wasted a few minutes here and there lol. Getting my boot loader set up was a bit of a pain for some reason... so I semi-cheated and used the ubuntu installer to auto detect my OS's and install grub for me haha. I still don't know why my grub file wasn't working when I set it up myself, as the options were identical in both. Ah well, it works haha.I now have a working, bootable, Gentoo system with a root and a user for myself for everyday use. Currently I'm at a bit of a brick wall as I apparently missed a module upon compiling the kernal required for DHCP so my network isn't being set up properly. Tonight after work I'll hopefully be able to recompile the kernel and add the needed modules without much problem. I should have spent more time when choosing modules to install in the kernal so I guess that was my own fault on account of carelessness and eagerness to see a booting system haha. Regardless other then that the process went well and at least I have a system to try to work on now

[yordan 10]

apparently missed a module upon compiling the kernal required for DHCP so my network isn't being set up

If only DHCP module is missing, you should be able to test your network using a fixed IP address, isn't it ?
I guess that you should simply connect to your router and see the router's address, it's probably something like 192.168.1.1, pick up temporarily a fixed address like 192.168.1.4, and test that your PC is able to ping the router.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Yea that would make sense. I've been doing some reading and it turns out I missed a few others things I want to have installed so I'll probably still just re-do the kernel tonight and hopefully that'll take care of that problem and a few others I forsee me having eventually otherwise.

[qwijibow 0]

yes, you can keep your current /boot partiton (provided that the current grub install has its own /boot partiton)just add the gentoo kernel to that /boot partiton, and edit the config accordingly.