I did it!

**ThoughtVelocity** · 12-02-2005

Well, I finally got the nerve to try and install Gentoo. I did a Stage3. After completing up to the first reboot here are some of my observations:

I Installed it on an older desktop - 500MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GM HD. Took about three hours. Most of the actual computer time was spent on the kernel compilation and unpacking the stage3 tarball. A lot of time was spent reading and rereading, I wanted to make sure I followed the instructions perfectly. The manual was very clear and as long as one spends time chewing it, it can be digested quite easily. It was really not as hard as I envisioned, however given the more new hardware one has I can imagine the difficulty or rather time going up exponentially. The only one problem that I really had and still have, is an issue with netmount. The network card worked fine on the liveCD but once I rebooted it ceased to work. I still have some playing to do, so I really haven't looked to hard at it yet so this may or may not be a big issue. I think if I would have used genkernel this issue may not have existed. Next step tonight is to tidy it all up and install the gui stuff. Hopefully that goes ok. (fingers crossed)

And to anyone thinking of installing Gentoo but perhaps a little nervous, my advice is to read and read, and then read some more. It's really not as bad as some make it seem. If a schmuck like me can do it anyone can

**psic** · 12-02-2005

Congradulations. I agree with your observations, installing Gentoo is not really hard if you follow the instructions. That said, you should likewise follow the instructions for installing a gui (I started with fluxbox and now use gnome). As for the issue with the network card, you probably just have to load the appropriate module (8139too in my case).

**smolloy** · 12-02-2005

Well done!

Having installed gentoo myself a few weeks ago (and quite a few more times in the intervening time

) I agree with all of your observations. Any errors I came across were purely related to me misreading the handbook. Otherwise it's one of the best (IMHO) distributions I have come across -- portage is worth its weight in gold!!

As for your network, I had a similar problem that was fixed by,

Code:

emerge coldplug
rc-update add coldplug boot

This was in the handbook, but maybe you overlooked it??

EDIT:: Spelling...

**ThoughtVelocity** · 12-02-2005

I used the 2005.1 handbook, and I don't recall seeing anything about coldplug. Of course it was very late. I will try your suggestion though. Thanks.

[edit] It looks like I did miss it in the handbook. It was under the genkernel section. I compiled my kernel and didn't use genkernel which would explain why I did not see it.

**budman7** · 12-02-2005

I don't know why they put the coldplug command in the Genkernel section.
I almost missed it when I installed Gentoo on my system.

**smolloy** · 12-02-2005

I know what you mean budman. Part of my feels that they should include it in the post installation configuration, but then again, the genkernel section is designed for people who want their gentoo system to boot up the same way as the livecd and have the same hardware detection. From this point of view it makes sense to include it with the genkernel stuff.

One point to note is that if you compile the drivers for all your hardware into the kernel then you don't need coldplug and it can be removed from the boot process to speed things up.

**Stefann** · 12-02-2005

Originally Posted by ThoughtVelocity

Well, I finally got the nerve to try and install Gentoo. I did a Stage3. After completing up to the first reboot here are some of my observations:

I Installed it on an older desktop - 500MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GM HD. Took about three hours. Most of the actual computer time was spent on the kernel compilation and unpacking the stage3 tarball. A lot of time was spent reading and rereading, I wanted to make sure I followed the instructions perfectly. The manual was very clear and as long as one spends time chewing it, it can be digested quite easily. It was really not as hard as I envisioned, however given the more new hardware one has I can imagine the difficulty or rather time going up exponentially. The only one problem that I really had and still have, is an issue with netmount. The network card worked fine on the liveCD but once I rebooted it ceased to work. I still have some playing to do, so I really haven't looked to hard at it yet so this may or may not be a big issue. I think if I would have used genkernel this issue may not have existed. Next step tonight is to tidy it all up and install the gui stuff. Hopefully that goes ok. (fingers crossed)

And to anyone thinking of installing Gentoo but perhaps a little nervous, my advice is to read and read, and then read some more. It's really not as bad as some make it seem. If a schmuck like me can do it anyone can

Only three hours on that machine? Wow, I should try it on my 1.2GhZ AMD Duron with 512MB RAM.

**Dachnaz** · 12-02-2005

Coldplug is nice and can be useful for detecting many pieces of hardware, but I skipped it on this install and got everything working manually. I didn't even really miss it.

**ThoughtVelocity** · 12-03-2005

Originally Posted by smolloy

Code:

emerge coldplug
rc-update add coldplug boot

This was in the handbook, but maybe you overlooked it??

Well, that didn't work. I'll have to try something else.

**St. Joe** · 12-03-2005

Originally Posted by ThoughtVelocity

Originally Posted by smolloy

Code:

emerge coldplug
rc-update add coldplug boot

This was in the handbook, but maybe you overlooked it??

Well, that didn't work. I'll have to try something else.

What was the terminal output?

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