www.astrolox.com

by qbnut

Installation From a Stage 3 Tarball

This only covers getting the system up-and-running as quickly as possible, from an already built stage 3 tarball (Stargate was done like this, for speeds sake - with more time, I would have done it from a Stage 1 again).
For most, this is fine, but for those who want the full lowdown on going from a Stage 1 (as I did with Chevron) , go to
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-install-x86.xml

Note:
This is not a Linux newbie tutorial. This assumes you already know to some extent what you are doing with Linux, and what basic commands like vi, mount, etc do. Throughout this tutorial, I give no explanations as to why something is done the way it is. I assume you can figure it out. If not, and you really need guiding through installation, try the above link to the tutorial on the Gentoo.org site.

Boot Disk

• Grab http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc3/x86/x86/livecd/gentoo-basic-x86-1.4_rc3.iso
• Burn it to a CD-R/RW, Insert said CD-R/RW in PC, set boot CD-ROM Drive first in BIOS, Boot PC
• Wait a few moments, BASH prompt will appear
• insmod / modprobe relevant required drivers for NIC,etc (NOTE: Gentoo > 1.4 rc4 do an autodetect routine for you)
• ifconfig eth0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx netmask xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
• route add default xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
• date MMDDhhmmCCYY

Partitioning / Formatting

• cfdisk /dev/hda
• 1x /boot (~ 30MB) (/dev/hdaX)
• 1x Swap (~ 2x Available RAM) (/dev/hdaY)
• 1x / (~ Rest of disk) (/dev/hdaZ)
• Add extras for /usr and /home, if desired
• mke2fs -j /dev/hdaX | mkreiserfs /dev/hdaX | mkfs.xfs /dev/hdaX
• mke2fs -j /dev/hdaZ | mkreiserfs /dev/hdaZ | mkfs.xfs /dev/hdaZ
• mkswap /dev/hdaY

Init Disk Bits

• swapon /dev/hdaY
• mkdir /mnt/gentoo (not required if Gentoo version > 1.4rc3)
• mount /dev/hdaZ /mnt/gentoo
• mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
• mount /dev/hdaX /mnt/gentoo/boot

Untar System

• cd /mnt/gentoo
• wget http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc3/x86/x86/stages/stage3-x86-1.4_rc3.tar.bz2
• tar -xvjpf stage3-x86-1.4_rc3.tar.bz2
• mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
• nano /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
• chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
• env-update
• source /etc/profile

Update to latest emerge tree

• nano /etc/make.conf to set optimizations for ebuilds
• emerge sync | emerge rsync
• emerge -u system

Time Zone (Important!)

• ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT0 /etc/localtime

Build Kernel

• Emerge your choice of kernel here. I suggest “Vanilla” sources. Choose from ONE of the following:

  • emerge vanilla-sources
  • emerge gentoo-sources
  • emerge xfs-sources
  • emerge openmosix-sources
  • emerge usermode-sources

• cd /usr/src/linux/
• make menuconfig
• Turn on:
  • EXT3 Support & Second Extended File System support
  • /proc file system support
  • /dev filesystem support (and “Automatically mount this at boot” option)
  • DESELECT /dev/pts support
• make bzImage modules modules_install
• cd /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot
• mount /dev/hdaX /boot (if not done already)
• cp bzImage /boot/bzImage (or whatever your naming scheme is )