Blog . Jiboneus

Gentoo installation is a tricky one. Gentoo Linux is a source-based distro, which means you have to compile everything from scratch in other to get a working installation. That also means you probably going to spend your entire weekend to get it running smoothly. the standard installation time is about 20 - 30 hours, for a clueless newbie (me for example) or between 2 or 3 hours if you know what you’re doing depending on how fast your computer is. The installation process is totally different from your Redhats (or Fedora, the free one.) or SUSEs. Here is my experience in installing Gentoo.

Gentoo has this thing call portage, which is really an excellent package management system. In fact Gentoo, I think, was build around that. Gentoo’s portage downloads the latest sources off a mirror site and compiles them. It automatically solves dependencies. For example, if to compile this application requires this and that libraries of sorts, portage will get them off the mirror and compile it. In short, portage will download and compile everything that is needed to run the application, base on what flags you set that is. So Gentoo installation is basically booting from a Linux live CD with portage, and downloading the Linux kernel sources with everything that is needed and compiling it one by one. This means you will always get the latest in your OS.

I browse through the installation one time and decide to jump straight in and on with the installation. That was my first mistake. The installation when horribly wrong. All I end up in the end was a message telling me something about kernel panic. Even a Linux newbie like me knows that is not good. So here is what you should do when trying installing Gentoo.

The check list :-

• Gentoo Live installation CD.
• a copy of the installation documents, Print it if you could.
• a ok internet connection (faster then dial-up).
• make sure you clear up your schedule for the rest of the day.
• A whole lot of patience.

Make sure you read the installation docs two or three times. Print it out and staple it, keep it near you desk. If you are not a season Linux user, the installation documentation might be a little be intimidating, but if you follow it line by line, it will be ok. Be prepared. There is no friendly installer that hold your hand through the installing process, you are on your own. On my second attempt, I notice what my mistakes was the first attempt, it was all stupid mistakes that could be avoided if only I follow the installation documentation. Make sure you bookmark the Gentoo forums. Use the forum to search for any problem you might accouter. Use the search function on the forum. Any problem you might face most probably there are some or people on this planet have had the problem and have post it on the forum and most probably the solution is there too.

With that said, good luck with your Gentoo installation if you planing to try it. Gentoo is really a great Linux distro, I’ll be ranting about Gentoo more on this blog later.

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