Gentoo installation Update: DONE

**Dillinger** · 07-19-2003

Ok I got to the point about setting up the partitions and I'm not quite sure what to do. I'm running a dual boot of Windows XP on my primary drive (hda) and Mandrake on my secondary (hdb). This is what the current partitions look like on hdb:

Code:

Disk /dev/hdb&#58; 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
 
   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *         1       764   6136798+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb2           765      3807  24442897+   5  Extended
/dev/hdb5           765       827    506016   82  Linux swap
/dev/hdb6           828      3807  23936818+  83  Linux

As you can see, the second half of the drive is free and that's where I wish to install gentoo. I'm not sure how I should go about setting up the partitions. My bootloader is lilo and I was planning an install skipping the bootloader stuff and just manually editing my lilo.conf file. So eventually I'll be running a tri-boot with XP on the first drive, and Mandrake and Gentoo on the second drive. Any advice on the way I should go about doing this would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance...

**Dolda2000** · 07-20-2003

How good LBA support does LILO have? You might be better off installing GRUB instead, if you don't want to move the partitions to make room for another boot partition. /dev/hda1 is your boot partition, right? Or is it your root partition? If it is your boot partition, then why have you made it 6 GB?
Since you have the primary partitions hdb3 and hdb4, you'll just have to create the Gentoo partitions there. You can just use your existing swap partition for Gentoo as well.

**Dillinger** · 07-20-2003

What are the differences between GRUB and LILO? I really don't care what the boot loaders are like, but LILO seems to be pretty easy to use for the times when this computer is used by my folks. I'm not exactly sure how Mandrake delt with the partitions, when I use the Mandrake Control Center and go into their partitioning tool it says hdb1 is mounted on /, which I'm assuming is root, hdb5 is mounted at /swap and hdb6 is mounted at /home. That's about all I know, I'm new to this partitioning stuff...

**Dolda2000** · 07-20-2003

Ah, so hdb1 is your root partition. That makes it all the more logical.
GRUB is much more versatile than LILO, and don't worry, it has a nice graphical menu as well.
So, create a new partition at hdb3 to use as your root partition in Gentoo. You can reuse the swap partition, and if you want to, you can use the same home partition in Gentoo as well, so that your home directory is the same in both Mdk and Gentoo. Otherwise, just make hdb3 fill the entire hard drive, and don't create a seperate partition for your Gentoo home dirs. That's the easiest.

**Dillinger** · 07-20-2003

Alright that makes sense. Couple more little questions. Where should all the boot stuff be installed? It seems to me all the boot stuff for both linux and windows is on the windows drive with LILO. Also how would I go about replacing LILO with GRUB, possibly during the Gentoo install?

**Dolda2000** · 07-20-2003

The Gentoo installation guide will describe how to write GRUB to your MBR. Just place the boot information in the /boot directory. Another advantage of GRUB is that has the capability to actually read filesystems, so when it starts, it just reads its configuration file directly from whereever you choose to put it.

**Dillinger** · 07-20-2003

Well once I got to Stage 3, particularly fstab all went to hell. I got permission denied when trying to access /etc/fstab, and trying nano -w /etc/fstab and editing it that way didn't work either. I got the bright idea of saving it as fstab in another directory, deleting the current fstab and moving the one I made into the /etc directory but I'm not sure how well that worked. I also wasn't sure how to do the whole dnsdomainname thing. I also wasn't sure how to set up grub so I just skipped that and decided to edit my lilo.conf file in Mandrake. When I went to unmount /mnt/gentoo/boot, /mnt/gentoo/proc and /mnt/gentoo it gave me something about it not finding it, I guess I should have written it down. Obviously they weren't mounted in the first place, ugg. Also when I tried to reboot it gave me some init error, so overall I failed. Then when I edited my lilo.conf and rebooted, the new option didn't even show up. Either I did it wrong, or Gentoo is just so messed up I don't know. If anyone has anything to recommend, especially how to set up grub, that would be appreciated before I take the plunge again...

**Dolda2000** · 07-21-2003

Did you add /mnt/gentoo/* as mount points in your Gentoo fstab? If that's what you meant, then there's the error. /mnt/gentoo only exists as long as your running the LiveCD. Once you boot the actual system, what was /mnt/gentoo on the LiveCD is the root directory.

**Dillinger** · 07-21-2003

No I didn't use /mnt/gentoo in the fstab. I decided to boot with the gentoo cd again and see if I could try and edit the fstab again and this time it let me. I added the stuff needed, but I still think some stuff is messed up. I decided to see if it will even boot by editing my lilo.conf the way the gentoo doc says but the new option wont even come up. I'd try installing GRUB from the gentoo cd but I'd like the confidence that gentoo works before I do that, because if it doesnt or I install GRUB wrong I'm stuck up the creek without a boot loader. Heres what my lilo.conf currently looks like:

Code:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb&#58;bw&#58;wb&#58;bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="Mandrake"
	root=/dev/hdb1
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
	vga=788
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="linux-nonfb"
	root=/dev/hdb1
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="failsafe"
	root=/dev/hdb1
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off failsafe"
	read-only
image=/boot/bzImage
	label="Gentoo"
	root=/dev/hdb3
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
	read-only
other=/dev/hda1
	label="windows"
	table=/dev/hda

In the gentoo doc the initrd and append was not there and I still got nothing without it so I thought I'd put it in. Part of me still thinks somethings not right with the way it's installing on the partitions, sigh why couldn't I be installing this on the primary drive and not on the second half of the 2nd drive, this is really messing me up...

**Dolda2000** · 07-21-2003

Why are you using an initrd for? Did you compile your own Gentoo kernel, and are you using the same boot partition for Mdk and Gentoo?
What happens now when you try to boot Gentoo?

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