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Homepage: http://linux.50webs.org/ Forums: (No Registration Necessary) The short scripts below, will walk you through the installation of the 2005.1, or 2005.0, editions of Gentoo. It is assumed that you have the relevant CD sets, but no internet connection. The CD set (of two disks) can be downloaded from one of the mirrors listed here. A little history. A few months ago, I was given a set of Linux distributions which included Gentoo 2005.0. I attempted to install Gentoo, but quickly gave up. This was due to not being able to access the full documentation. I entered the command links /mnt/cdrom/docs/handbook/html/index.html as suggested in the text that appears just after the CD boots. This provided what appeared to be documentation. Unfortunately, having never used the program links before, I did not correctly discover how to navigate the pages. I made the assumption that one used the navigation line [ << ] [ < ] [ Home ] [ > ] [ >> ] to navigate the document. However, this was not quite correct. As a result, I only found the index pages. Since then, I have learned that you use the arrow keys to navigate to the various links within the body of a page, then hit enter while over such a link, in order to be sent to wherever that link is pointing. At the time, this was not at all apparent, and without instructions, it was pointless continuing with the installation (actually, I should be thankful that I was using 2005.0, as 2005.1 "accidentally" provides the wrong address for the documentation). Anyway, after giving up on the Gentoo install, I proceeded to install Mandriva 10.2 and Debian 3.1 and was quite impressed with them both. Some time later, I visited the Gentoo web-site, and found the installation manual. Armed with a copy of the manual, I figured I would give the installation another go. After a fair bit of digging around, I managed to get a working desktop. About this time Gentoo 2005.1 was released. With my 2005.0 experience, I felt it would be relatively easy to record the commands used in the installation of 2005.1 and write the process as a script (or set of scripts). This is the result. One surprising thing I discovered along the way, is that some of the Gentoo group have an interest in "accidentally" making the installation process much more difficult than it need be. Let me relate the following incident. In Gentoo 2005.0, the command emerge --usepkg kde installs the KDE desktop. However, this command does not work in 2005.1. To find out what gives, I registered with the Gentoo forum forums.gentoo.org. After some time I was told that a new command emerge --usepkg kde-meta had been introduced. Why a new command? Why not the natural old command, which after all, now has no purpose at all? I thought this rather strange, but stranger things were yet to come. I imagined that a lot of people would be interested in this information and started a thread about it at the forum. To my great surprise, it was deleted (well, actually, it was moved from the installation section, to some hidden corner of their site). So I started another thread, with the same result. This time I was informed that the thread had been moved because the topic had been dealt with in some other post (that had also been quite deliberately hidden away from public view). I repeated this process some 7 or 8 times. Then they banned me. Think about it, the Gentoo people were so desperate to remove my posts from view, that they hid 7 threads, using 7 times the disk space, rather than have one visible to the public. Actually, the last thread was locked and it quietly sunk out of sight. Since it was doomed to be lost among unvisited/unread pages, the administration felt no need to move or delete it, as they had the other threads. Besides leaving the locked thread there for a few hours was "proof they were not involved in censorship." So the Gentoo forum administration succeeded in hiding all threads related to the correct installation of KDE. Some good did come from my persistence, however, as someone added the correct command to the Gentoo KDE installation page the next day. I know this because I saved copies of the page on successive days (just before, and just after, it was added). When last I looked, it had not been added to the installation manual. There is plenty of evidence that certain Gentoo people are deliberately (and surreptitiously) crippling their product. Why might this be? Well, for an answer to that, you will have to ask them. Wow, this is all even weirder than I at first imagined. I visited Ubuntu's forum, ubuntuforums.org, and started a thread which essentially just pointed to this page. Guess what? Yes, it was deleted. I re-posted it in another section and guess what? Yes, it was deleted again. In the end, I must have posted it there some 8 or 9 times, and 8 or 9 times, it is was deleted. I was then temporarily banned for, you guessed it, "spamming". How sick is that? And I have just been banned from www.linuxforums.org/forum/ for posting it there just ONCE! Other forums that have banned me for pointing to this page are knoppix.net and linuxquestions.org. In case you are wondering, all the mentioned forums (except for linuxquestions.org) banned me before I added the section on Javascript movies. Lest anyone think that this thread is somehow outrageous, here is a full copy of it.
I also suggested to linuxtoday.com that if they were willing to link to useless articles like OSNews: A Slacker Tries His Hand at Gentoo then they could quite justifiably link to linux.coconia.net. Of course, they never did. Anyone got any idea what is going on? |
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The installation is achieved by running three scripts. Links to the scripts can be found at the bottom of this page. The scripts are free to be used and altered in accordance with the GPL. The scripts are licensed as GPL software. USE AT OWN RISK. So that you can see most of what the scripts do, I have included a sample run of their output, below. SCRIPT #1. Installation of Gentoo 2005.x from the CD set (without internet). Notes. This script will guide you through the installation of the 2005.1 or 2005.0 editions of Gentoo. It is assumed that you have the relevant CD sets, but no internet connection. This script will use the pre-compiled binaries found on the packages CD. It will get a Gentoo system up and running quickly, so that you can experiment with a working Gentoo system (and, in particular, its package manager, portage). When the script pauses, you should enter the requested information, or press return, to continue. What edition of Gentoo do you wish to install? 1 2005.1 0 2005.0 Enter 1 or 0 (default is 1): 1 The edition of Gentoo you wish to install is 2005.1. Some things you have probably already done. 1). Copy the 3 scripts walkthru1, walkthru2 and walkthru3 to a floppy disk (along with the missing files if installing 2005.0). 2). Enter the BIOS of your computer and set the CD-drive as the first boot device. You enter the BIOS by pressing a particular key when the memory is being checked (while the boot screen page is still visible). This key is usually the Del key. If the Del key does not work, look around the boot screen page to try and discover the correct key. It is usually one of the following: Del, F1, F2, F3, F10, Ctrl+Alt+Esc, Ctrl+Alt+A, Ctrl+Alt+S, or Esc. 3). Put the Gentoo installation disc into your CD drive. Start your computer. The CD will take control and present you with a command prompt, where you can enter commands. 4). Once you can enter commands, make the mount point /a, and mount the floppy drive on it, by entering the commands: mkdir /a (make a directory to mount the floppy on) mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /a (mount the floppy) 5). Make sure the scripts are executable, and then run the script walkthru1 by entering the commands: chmod +x /a/walkthru* (make the 3 scripts executable) /a/walkthru1 (start the first script) Of course, if you are reading this, then you have probably already done all the things listed above. Commands you must enter (cut & paste) have a cyan background Commands that are entered for you, have a purple background Take time to read the official documentation. To have the official documentation available, as you install, press Alt+F2. This will take you to the second virtual terminal (Alt+F1 gets you back). At the command prompt enter the command: less /mnt/cdrom/docs/txt/install.txt This will display the official documentation. Read it. Note that Alt+F3 brings up a third virtual terminal, Alt+F4 a fourth, etc. The official documentation contains instructions on how to partition your hard-drive. The instructions use fdisk (cfdisk is better if you are familiar with it). You need to run fdisk from one of the virtual terminals (Alt+F3) or, you can exit this script by pressing Ctrl+C, run fdisk, and then restart the script with /a/walkthru1. You should create and format at least two partitions on your hard-disk. One, a smaller partition (about double the size of your RAM), for use as swap, and another to install Gentoo on. You may also wish to create a boot partition, but we will not bother with one. If you have a lot of RAM, then the swap partition is probably not necessary either. It is recommended that you reboot after having formated your partitions. I suggest that you format your partitions with the Reiser filesystem (rather than ext2 or ext3). It is an excellent filesystem. XFS and JFS may also be fine, but I have no experience with them. The official documentation is (deliberately) wrong in a few places. The script now needs to gather various bits of information. The installation discs only caters for the more common architectures. If your architecture is not one of the following, then you can still install Gentoo 2005.1, but you will need an internet connection. What type architecture is your system? 1 i686 2 athlon-xp 3 pentium3 4 pentium4 5 x86 Enter the corresponding number (no default): 1 Your system is i686. What type is your hard-disk? 1 ide 2 scsi Enter 1 or 2 (no default): 1 Your hard-disk is IDE Is your hard-disk on the first or second IDE/SCSI controller? 1 first 2 second Enter 1 or 2 (no default): 1 Your hard-disk is on the first IDE controller. Is your hard-disk the master or slave? 1 master 2 slave Enter 1 or 2 (no default): 1 Your hard-disk is /dev/hda (the master disk on the first IDE controller). What is the number of your swap partition? Enter a number (no default): 1 Your swap partition will be /dev/hda1. What is the number of your install partition? Enter a number (no default): 2 Your install partition will be /dev/hda2. What is the filesystem type of the install partition? 1 Reiser 2 Ext2 3 Ext3 4 JFS 5 XFS Enter the corresponding number (no default): 1 Your install partition /dev/hda2 is formatted with the Reiser filesystem. The script now has enough information to begin. Your system is i686. Your swap partition will be /dev/hda1. You will be installing Gentoo 2005.1 to /dev/hda2 and /dev/hda2 has been formatted with the Reiser filesystem. So that you can see what is happening each command will be output to the terminal as it is executed. To begin, press return: mount -t reiserfs /dev/hda2 /mnt/gentoo tar -xjpf /mnt/cdrom/stages/stage3-i686-2005.1.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/ tar -xjpf /mnt/cdrom/snapshot*/portage*.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr/ mkdir /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles cp -r /mnt/cdrom/distfiles/* /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage/distfiles/ mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc Getting a kernel for your system. We will now copy the kernel from the CD. This is for safety. Later you will have the option to roll your own kernel. If you roll your own, you will then have two kernels from which to boot. If your experiment in creating your own kernel does not work out so well, you will still be able to boot with the CD-kernel. Note, that if you have formatted your partition with the JFS filesystem, the CD-kernel (and genkernel) will not boot. The CD-kernel is large and therefore a little slower, but will boot and run your system, just fine. It also often loads many unnecessary modules which slows it down a little further. Your own kernel will be leaner and meaner, but it takes some knowlegde of your system to choose all the drivers and features you desire. You will often have to roll your own kernel if you wish to include non standard features, eg, squash or cloop filesystem support. It is not easy to configure a kernel (mainly because you will not be familiar with all the configuration options) so you should try and roll your own kernel while you have the safety of the CD-kernel. The following commands will install the CD-kernel. mkdir /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules/ cp -r /mnt/livecd/lib/modules/`uname -r` /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules/ cp /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/{gentoo,gentoo.igz} /mnt/gentoo/boot The kernel modules loaded at boot are in the file gentoo.igz. Although the command cat gentoo.igz | gunzip | cpio -tv should list the entire archives contents, it only lists the main directories and some block devices. So all the modules have been hidden (the boot message claims the modules are loaded). This may have been acheived by rewriting the archiving program cpio, so that chosen files can be hidden. Perhaps, Gentoo is not really all about helping people learn Linux, after all. At this point we will change the directory that /bin/bash considers the root directory. Clearly this cannot be done from a script like this one which is run by /bin/bash. So we will have to exit the script, and start another after changing the root directory. In order to change the root directory to what will be the root of your Gentoo system, cut and paste the following command: chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash then start the next script by entering (again by cutting and pasting): mkdir /a mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /a /a/walkthru2 swap=/dev/hda1 install=/dev/hda2 filesystem=reiserfs edition=2005.1 SCRIPT #2. Installation of Gentoo 2005.1 from the CD set (continued). env-update (update environment) source /etc/profile (adopt new profile) Do you wish to roll your own kernel? y = yes n = no Enter y or n (default is y): y Go to another virtual terminal (Alt+F3) and enter the command lspci The command lspci lists vendor and model information about each of your PCI and AGP cards. You can refer to this information as you configure your kernel. You should compile all the drivers that are vital to your system, or you will use regularly, into your kernel (not as modules). The drivers you complile as modules will have to be loaded by hand using the command modprobe (when you need them). emerge gentoo-sources (unpack kernel sources) cd /usr/src/linux (move to kernel sources) We now backup the main makefile and edit it to give the kernel a unique 'uname -r' tag (so the system knows when this kernel is running). cp Makefile OldMakefile (backup the main makefile) awk '{print gensub(/^EXTRAVERSION.*/,"EXTRAVERSION = -custom","g")}' OldMakefile > Makefile Now glance over the options for make (press q to quit the program less) make help | less make menuconfig (configure the kernel) make all (compile the kernel and modules) make modules_install (install the modules) cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.12-custom (install the kernel) cp .config /boot/config-2.6.12-custom (save your configuration) cd / (return to the root directory) You can also use the program genkernel to build a kernel. This seems to just replicate the CD kernel. It is not clear what you gain from genkernel (if anything). However, it cannot hurt. Be warned, it takes a long time to compile all the modules. Do you wish to build a kernel using genkernel? Enter y or n (default is n): y awk '{print gensub(/^EXTRAVERSION.*/,"EXTRAVERSION = -gk","g")}' OldMakefile > Makefile emerge genkernel (unpack and compile genkernel) genkernel --mrproper all (use genkernel to compile and install kernel & modules) We now add some needed programs. emerge reiserfsprogs (unpack and compile tools for Reiser filesystem) emerge coldplug (unpack and compile coldplug which starts stuff at boot) rc-update add coldplug boot (tell system to start this at early boot) emerge syslog-ng (unpack and compile system logger) rc-update add syslog-ng default (tell system to start this at boot) emerge vixie-cron (unpack and compile vixie-cron) rc-update add vixie-cron default (tell system to start this at boot) We will now adjust some configuration files: cp /etc/bash/bashrc /etc/bash/bashrc.old (save old bashrc file) alias r='less' alias m='more' alias ls='ls --color' alias ll='ls -l' alias lsd='ls -d `ls -aF|g /`' alias n='ls -stl|head -n 40' alias reboot='shutdown -r now' alias bye='shutdown -h now' alias e='emacs' alias ..='cd ..' alias ...='cd ../../' alias ....='cd ../../../' alias rm='rm -i' alias mv='mv -i' alias cp='cp -i' alias g='grep -E' We will now add the above handy aliases to the file /etc/bash/bashrc. cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.old (save old filesystem table)
We will now write the above filesystem table to /etc/fstab. Enter a host name for your system (default is myhostname): myhostname Your system is called myhostname. mv /etc/conf.d/hostname /etc/conf.d/hostname.old (save old configuration) HOSTNAME=myhostname We will now write the above hostname configuration: Enter a domain name for your system (default is mydomainname): mydomainname Your domain is called mydomainname. cp /etc/conf.d/domainname /etc/conf.d/domainname.old (save old configuration) DNSDOMAIN=mydomainname #NISDOMAIN=mynisdomainname We will now write the above domain name configuration: cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.old (save old configuration) 127.0.0.1 myhostname.mydomainname myhostname localhost # IPV6 versions of localhost and co ::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters ff02::3 ip6-allhosts We will now write the above local dns configuration: Choose a timezone from the following list. Some selections will require a further choice (the default timezone is UTC): Africa/ Atlantic/ Chile/ Eire Factory GMT-0 Iceland Jamaica Mexico/ NZ Singapore US/ Zulu America/ Australia/ CST6CDT EST GB GMT+0 Indian/ Japan Mideast/ NZ-CHAT PRC SystemV/ UTC Antarctica/ Brazil/ Cuba GB-Eire EST5EDT Greenwich Iran Kwajalein MST Pacific/ PST8PDT Turkey WET Arctic/ Canada/ EET Etc/ GMT Hongkong Libya MST7MDT Poland ROC UCT W-SU Asia/ CET Egypt Europe/ GMT0 HST Israel MET Navajo Portugal ROK Universal Enter your timezone: Canada Choose a refinement Atlantic Central Eastern East-Saskatchewan Mountain Newfoundland Pacific Saskatchewan Yukon Enter your chosen refinement: Mountain Your timezone is Canada/Mountain: ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Mountain /etc/localtime We will now configure your timezone as shown above. After rebooting you need the console mouse, so we configure it. cp /etc/conf.d/gpm /etc/conf.d/gpm.old (save old mouse config) Choose the protocol your console mouse uses (default is imps2): imps2 ps2 genitizer gunze logi logim mm ms3 ms+ ms+lr msc mtouch ncr netmouse pnp sun summa syn synps2 twid vsxxxaa wacom wp Enter your console mouse driver protocol: imps2 Enter the device name for your mouse (default is /dev/input/mice). Enter the device name of your mouse: /dev/input/mice MOUSE=imps2 MOUSEDEV=/dev/input/mice We will now write the above mouse configuration: rc-update add gpm default (tell system to start console mouse at boot) emerge grub (unpack and compile the boot manager grub) cp /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub/grub.conf.old (save old grub config) default 0 timeout 10 splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz title InstallationCDKernel Gentoo 2005.1 kernel (hd0,1)/boot/gentoo root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/hda2 initrd (hd0,1)/boot/gentoo.igz title MyCustomKernel-2.6.12 Gentoo 2005.1 kernel (hd0,1)/boot/kernel-2.6.12-custom root=/dev/hda2 title GenKernel-2.6.12 Gentoo 2005.1. kernel (hd0,1)/boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.12-gk root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/hda2 initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.12-gk We will now write the above grub boot configuration: Do you want to load the boot manager to the Master Boot Record? Enter y or n (the default is y): y To do this you need to enter the following at the grub prompt: (write them down as they will dissappear when you need them). grub> root (hd0,1) (specify your /boot partition, (hd0,1)=/dev/hda2, etc) grub> setup (hd0) (install GRUB to the MBR, (hd0)=/dev/hda, etc) grub> quit (exit the GRUB shell) grub We will now set the root password (if you do not do this, you will not be able to log in, after rebooting): passwd For regular use, it is best to create a less privileged user than root. You do this by choosing a regular username and adding an account. Enter a username (the default is myusername): myusername useradd -G users,wheel,audio -m myusername We enter the above command to create the users account. The -m creates a full home directory /home/myusername for myusername. The -G wheel entry allows myusername to use the su command. We now set myusername's password: passwd myusername After the script finishes, you must exit the chroot environment and reboot. Don't forget to remove the install-CD. You must remove it after the system has shutdown and before it reboots. If you forget, the CD will be booted again instead of your new Gentoo system. On rebooting, you will have the choice of 1,2 or 3 different kernels to boot from. Choose one and see how things worked out. After the system has rebooted put the Gentoo Packages CD in the CD drive, mount the floppy on /a, as usual, and run /a/walkthru3. exit (exit the chroot environment) reboot SCRIPT #3. Installation of Gentoo 2005.x from the CD set (continued). Initially, after emerge --usepkg kde led to all sorts of problems, I thought that Gentoo 2005.1 did not support KDE. It does. It seems the new command is emerge --usepkg kde-meta. Who would guess that!?!? Gentoo didn't bother to tell anyone about the change until it was made public on their forums (after which they added the command to their KDE page, but not to their installation instructions (as yet)). The forum admins deleted this information by moving it to some hidden corner of their site (with the excuse that it had been dealt with in some other deliberately hidden away post). The forum still has this information "safely" hidden from public view. Have you put the Gentoo package CD in the CD-drive? mkdir /cd mount /cd export PKGDIR=/cd/ emerge --usepkg kde-meta emerge --usepkg gnome emerge --usepkg xfce4 emerge --usepkg openoffice-bin emerge --usepkg emacs emerge --usepkg vim If you want any of the above programs (open office, emacs or vi) go to a virtual terminal (Alt+F2), log in, and enter the command(s) corresponding to your choice. Now you have to setup your graphics card. If you have a working xorg.conf file from another linux installation (on the same physical hardware), you should be able to copy it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and it should work. You may have to tweak it a little. Whatever you do, do it with care, as it is possible to total your graphics card, and/or monitor. If you do not have a working xorg.conf file, you can find out what sort of graphics card/chipset you have by entering lspci and looking for the VGA entry. The command lspci lists vendor and model information about all your PCI and AGP cards. For more on setting up graphics, see; http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml There are various tools to help you setup your graphics configuration, for example, Xorg -configure or xorgconfig or xorgcfg. Since I have little experience with these, I will leave you to read the docs. Once you have your xorg.conf file configured, you can start xfce4 with startxfce4 Starting gnome is a bit harder. For Gentoo 2005.0 you need to add the line exec gnome-system to the file ~/.xinitrc (in your home directory (I believe you need to create this file)) and then enter the command startx However, this does not work for Gentoo 2005.1. Thanks a lot, Gentoo. To start KDE, comment out/remove the line exec gnome-system, and write exec startkde for Gentoo 2005.0 or exec /usr/kde/3.4/bin/startkde for Gentoo 2005.1, to the ~/.xinitrc file and then enter the command startx. However, you can forget about editing these files if you use the Gnome display manager. The Gnome display manager will start a graphical desktop for you at boot. It has already been installed and only needs to be configured. There will be a menu from which you can choose among the already installed desktops The Gnome display manager could have been simply set as the default. However, a totally non-functional display manager will be started unless you make the following change (if you ever get stuck with this display manager) press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get to a virtual terminal. mv /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.old awk '{print gensub(/[# ]*DISPLAYMANAGER=.*$/,"DISPLAYMANAGER=gdm","g")}' /etc/rc.conf.old > /etc/rc.conf Do not configure the Gnome display manager to start at boot until you have a working xorg.conf file. Do you wish to start the Gnome display manager at boot? y = yes n = no Enter y or n (default is n): n When you have a working xorg.conf file you can configure the Gnome display manager to start at boot with the command: rc-update add xdm default And that's it. I hope it all went well. The following 3 files are LIVE scripts. They have to be run as root and will perform the commands indicated. In order to upload the scripts I had to add the suffix .txt to each of them, so you need to remove the suffices and make them executable, with the commands: mv walkthru1.txt walkthru1 ;mv walkthru2.txt walkthru2 ;mv walkthru3.txt walkthru3 chmod +x walkthru* walkthru1.txt md5 = 50fabf7c33cca1c59bbe518fae581953 walkthru2.txt md5 = 2ae6e582598ae580df1c24abeed54d1c (title= changed to title ) (older version was 0ba002b6a819d7bd35abf9e40ce3b493) walkthru3.txt md5 = 2d63c0713a0041d2c74ec064f713f530 The following script is DEAD. Visually, it takes you through the above 3 LIVE scripts without running any of the commands. This script is safe to play with. dead.txt Once again you have to make the script executable. There is no need to remove the .txt extension as the filename is not used elsewhere. chmod +x dead.txt If you run a script from the same directory that the script is in, you need to add ./ to the front of it, eg, ./dead.txt This is GPL software. USE AT OWN RISK. |