Stage 3 Gentoo installation

[Mathiasdm]

Hi,
I'm currently currently planning on installing Gentoo, using Stage 3 installation (without internet access).
I'm installing Gentoo to get to know Linux better (my previous Linux version was VectorLinux -- A big difference), so I can give LFS a try.

Now, a question that is probably not often asked...
Is it hard enough?
I know installing Gentoo is complicated, but seeing as stage 3 includes prebuilt packages, I'm wondering if it's still that hard.

Any answers?

[Slip]

Follow the manual and everything should be fine, they cover everything. If you have any questions feel free to message me.

[Mathiasdm]

Thanks!

[flupke]

In fact, it's not more difficult to install gentoo if you start from a stage 1. But it will take a lot more time. If you look at it, going from stage 1 to stage 3 is just executing the bootstrap script and issuing an "emerge system".

The big difference between gentoo and lfs install is the way you obtain your base system :
With gentoo, you just execute the bootstrap script, or you start with a stage 2 or 3. But with lfs, you will have to compile all of that by hand. But once you're there, you have to configure nearly everything by hand.

Also, gentoo has a great package management system (emerge - ebuild) that do not exist with lfs (AFAIK)

And for the question "Is it hard enough?", I want to say 'no!' :
The gentoo web site has an awfull lot of documentions covering nearly all topics for a standard linux system. That's what makes it great!
I don't think that with lfs, you will get all this stuff centralised in one place.

Anyway, both are great to learn and understand linux...


HTH
Flupke

[sarumont]

With LFS, you do get some great documentation. I don't know about a forum like the gentoo forums, but the LFS pdf is very detailed. I've pondered installing LFS, but installing Gentoo from stage1 is just much more appetizing. I think it would be more worth your time to tweak the hell out of your Gentoo install and learn all the inner-workings of Gentoo.

[SumitK]

What is LFS?

[flupke]

LFS is "Linux From Scratch".
It is not really a distribution. It's more a set of documentations that explain how to download and compile each and every part of your linux system, starting from nothing (well, you only need a runnable linux system, but any live cd will do...). In fact, you don't install a linux from scratch. You create it...

HTH
Flupke

[george]

hey, nice to meet u all here!

i'm newbie in play linux, and now i want to try gentoo. I install gentoo from stage 3 and without connection. what the deficult i meet is i dont know how to do the setting in the make.conf file. In genkernel part, i also dont know how to do the setting for the hardware. My pc is P4 HT and using SATA HD. thank you helping me.