# Going to try ubuntoo but would like get gentoo working



## redwing26 (Jan 21, 2006)

Hi I basically followed the docs for gentoo but when I rebooted I didnt get any X windows also it says something about me not having a dhcp module loaded .........another thing is that when the pc started booting the display was all garbled initially so i couldnt see any important boot up messages, my spec is as follows

AMD 64 Athlon 3200+
Asus k8v se Deluxe MOBO
Creative audigy 4 pro (gentoo says something about no alsa drivers being loaded)
Marvell Yukon gigabyte ethernet onboard nic (gentoo works on internet with net-setup eth0 during install but not after install) 
1.44 floppy drive
NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A

I have installed various linux flavours before but Im still very new as there is so much to learn but Im really going to try and stick with it this time ........when I downloaded gentoo even though I had an amd 64 I downloaded http://gentoo.blueyonder.co.uk/releases/x86/2005.1-r1/installcd/install-x86-universal-2005.1-r1.iso as I figured if I want to use lots of different software there will maybe be less bugs with the 32bit stuff is it okay to do this?

When I got to the part in the installation docs regarding downloading a stage 3 tarball I believe I downloaded 2005.1-r1 tarball then I read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=5 and started filling out the make.conf file with compile options .......the thing is .....I think I set my file like this but wasnt sure if it was correct ......(remembering that I didnt want to configure 64bit at this time

CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -pipe -O2"   # AMD64 users should use march=k8
                                                       # EM64T users should use march=nocona
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"                      # Use the same settings for both variables
MAKEOPTS="-j2


I know continued on with the docs and did the section (copy dns info) .......the thing is I use dhcp but thought maybe I should follow instructions to the letter so I did this 

Copy DNS Info

One thing still remains to be done before we enter the new environment and that is copying over the DNS information in /etc/resolv.conf. You need to do this to ensure that networking still works even after entering the new environment. /etc/resolv.conf contains the nameservers for your network. 

Code Listing 3: Copy over DNS information

(The "-L" option is needed to make sure we don't copy a symbolic link)
# cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf


Mounting the /proc and /dev Filesystems

Mount the /proc filesystem on /mnt/gentoo/proc to allow the installation to use the kernel-provided information within the chrooted environment, and then mount-bind the /dev filesystem. 

Code Listing 4: Mounting /proc and /dev

# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev

I also did the chroot part and then chose the default profile rather than making changes ....after which I followed this section to the letter (although as a newbie i found it slightly confusing  )

Configuring the USE variable

USE is one of the most powerful variables Gentoo provides to its users. Several programs can be compiled with or without optional support for certain items. For instance, some programs can be compiled with gtk-support, or with qt-support. Others can be compiled with or without SSL support. Some programs can even be compiled with framebuffer support (svgalib) instead of X11 support (X-server). 

Most distributions compile their packages with support for as much as possible, increasing the size of the programs and startup time, not to mention an enormous amount of dependencies. With Gentoo you can define what options a package should be compiled with. This is where USE comes into play. 

In the USE variable you define keywords which are mapped onto compile-options. For instance, ssl will compile ssl-support in the programs that support it. -X will remove X-server support (note the minus sign in front). gnome gtk -kde -qt will compile your programs with gnome (and gtk) support, and not with kde (and qt) support, making your system fully tweaked for GNOME. 

The default USE settings are placed in the make.defaults files of your profile. You will find make.defaults files in the directory which /etc/make.profile points to and all parent directories as well. The default USE setting is the sum of all USE settings in all make.defaults files. What you place in /etc/make.conf is calculated against these defaults settings. If you add something to the USE setting, it is added to the default list. If you remove something from the USE setting (by placing a minus sign in front of it) it is removed from the default list (if it was in the default list at all). Never alter anything inside the /etc/make.profile directory; it gets overwritten when you update Portage! 

A full description on USE can be found in the second part of the Gentoo Handbook, USE flags. A full description on the available USE flags can be found on your system in /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc. 

Code Listing 12: Viewing available USE flags

# less /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc
(You can scroll using your arrow keys, exit by pressing 'q')


As an example we show a USE setting for a KDE-based system with DVD, ALSA and CD Recording support: 

Code Listing 13: Opening /etc/make.conf

# nano -w /etc/make.conf

Code Listing 14: USE setting

USE="-gtk -gnome qt kde dvd alsa cdr"


Optional: GLIBC Locales

You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. Up until now after compiling glibc a full set of all available locales will be created. As of now you can activate the userlocales USE flag and specify only the locales you will need in /etc/locales.build. Only do this if you know what locales to choose. 

Code Listing 15: Activate the userlocales USE flag especially for glibc

# mkdir -p /etc/portage
# echo "sys-libs/glibc userlocales" >> /etc/portage/package.use


Now specify the locales you want to be able to use: 

Code Listing 16: Opening /etc/locales.build

# nano -w /etc/locales.build


The following locales are an example to get both English (United States) and German (Germany) with the accompanying character formats (like UTF-8). 

Code Listing 17: Specify your locales

en_US/ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8/UTF-8
de_DE/ISO-8859-1
de_DE@euro/ISO-8859-15

Now to the part I may have screwed up on  ........configurung the kernel .....

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7

I went onto the section manually configuring the kernel ( would I have3 been better with genkernel?) and I specified what the docs suggested but I ended up selecting the new ati radeon driver .....did I do the right thing here? .........I also selected audigy module em101k (I beleive) .....

In this part of menuconfig 

(With a 2.6.x kernel)
Device Drivers --->
  Networking support --->
    <*> PPP (point-to-point protocol) support
    <*>   PPP support for async serial ports
    <*>   PPP support for sync tty ports

I didnt select any as I have broadband blueyonder and not a dial up modem is this correct? also what networking support should I select in the kernel? which part of the menu? I also want all the linux windowing enviroments which parts should I select for this? is it complicated to setup or will it just work when the kernel is succesfully compiled

This part here I believe I deselected ......although I think my processor can support this but want it clarified first 

Processor type and features  --->
  [*] Symmetric multi-processing support

I have a ps2 keyboard and mouse so i deselected this
USB Support --->
  <*>   USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support

wasnt sure about this so i selected the defaults 

Code Listing 13: Enabling PCMCIA support for 2.6 kernels

Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA)  --->
  PCCARD (PCMCIA/CardBus) support  --->
    <*> PCCard (PCMCIA/CardBus) support
(select 16 bit if you need support for older PCMCIA cards. Most people want this.)
    <*>   16-bit PCMCIA support
    [*]   32-bit CardBus support
(select the relevant bridges below)
    --- PC-card bridges
    <*> CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support (NEW)
    <*> Cirrus PD6729 compatible bridge support (NEW)
    <*> i82092 compatible bridge support (NEW)
    <*> i82365 compatible bridge support (NEW)
    <*> Databook TCIC host bridge support (NEW)

I then compiled the kernel and wasnt sure about this section http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7#kernel_modules

so I didnt touch anything there....i followed the rest of the docs to section 8b networking information and did this part only 

8.b. Networking Information

Hostname, Domainname etc.

One of the choices the user has to make is name his/her PC. This seems to be quite easy, but lots of users are having difficulties finding the appropriate name for their Linux-pc. To speed things up, know that any name you choose can be changed afterwards. For all we care, you can just call your system tux and domain homenetwork. 

We use these values in the next examples. First we set the hostname: 

Code Listing 7: Setting the hostname

# nano -w /etc/conf.d/hostname

(Set the HOSTNAME variable to your hostname)
HOSTNAME="tux"


Second we set the domainname: 

Code Listing 8: Setting the domainname

# nano -w /etc/conf.d/domainname

(Set the DNSDOMAIN variable to your domain name)
DNSDOMAIN="homenetwork"


Now add the domainname script to the default runlevel: 

Code Listing 10: Adding domainname to the default runlevel

# rc-update add domainname default

I then went on to the following part where i may have screwewd up but I figured it may be needed as although i use dhcp I have a NAT router which makes my internal ips 192.168.168.*

Configuring your Network

Before you get that "Hey, we've had that already"-feeling, you should remember that the networking you set up in the beginning of the Gentoo installation was just for the installation. Right now you are going to configure networking for your Gentoo system permanently. 

Note: More detailed information about networking, including advanced topics like bonding, bridging, 802.1Q VLANs or wireless networking is covered in the Gentoo Network Configuration section. 


All networking information is gathered in /etc/conf.d/net. It uses a straightforward yet not intuitive syntax if you don't know how to set up networking manually. But don't fear, we'll explain everything. A fully commented example that covers many different configurations is available in /etc/conf.d/net.example. 

DHCP is used by default and does not require any further configuration. 

If you need to configure your network connection either because you need specific DHCP options or because you do not use DHCP at all, open /etc/conf.d/net with your favorite editor (nano is used in this example): 

Code Listing 11: Opening /etc/conf.d/net for editing

# nano -w /etc/conf.d/net


You will see the following file: 

Code Listing 12: Default /etc/conf.d/net

# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*
# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,
# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration
# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).


To enter your own IP address, netmask and gateway, you need to set both config_eth0 and routes_eth0: 

Code Listing 13: Manually setting IP information for eth0

config_eth0=( "192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.0.255" )
routes_eth0=( "default gw 192.168.0.1" )


To use DHCP and add specific DHCP options, define config_eth0 and dhcp_eth0: 

Code Listing 14: Automatically obtaining an IP address for eth0

config_eth0=( "dhcp" )
dhcp_eth0="nodns nontp nonis"


Please read /etc/conf.d/net.example for a list of all available options. 

If you have several network interfaces repeat the above steps for config_eth1, config_eth2, etc. 

Now save the configuration and exit to continue. 

Automatically Start Networking at Boot

To have your network interfaces activated at boot, you need to add them to the default runlevel. If you have PCMCIA interfaces you should skip this action as the PCMCIA interfaces are started by the PCMCIA init script. 

Code Listing 15: Adding net.eth0 to the default runlevel

# rc-update add net.eth0 default

I missed out the following part 

Code Listing 16: Creating extra initscripts

# cd /etc/init.d
# ln -s net.eth0 net.eth1
# rc-update add net.eth1 default

as it said that was to add extra init scripts and the only one im interested in is getting my eth0 working ......do I need to do anything more for that? 

I then filled in etc hosts like this 
# nano -w /etc/hosts

Code Listing 18: Filling in the networking information

127.0.0.1     localhost
192.168.168.231   tux.homenetwork tux

Im finding this post is getting huge as there is so much steps so I will try installing tonight again and hopefully this will have enabled folk to see  anything I need for my setup that I require 

One final thing .... I wasnt sure about this part so i missed it out

9.e. File System Tools

Depending on what file systems you are using, you need to install the necessary file system utilities (for checking the filesystem integrity, creating additional file systems etc.). 

The following table lists the tools you need to install if you use a certain file system: 

File System Tool Install Command 
XFS xfsprogs emerge xfsprogs 
ReiserFS reiserfsprogs emerge reiserfsprogs 
JFS jfsutils emerge jfsutils 

If you are an EVMS user, you also need to install evms: 

Code Listing 5: Installing EVMS utilities

# USE="-gtk" emerge evms


The USE="-gtk" will prevent the installation of dependencies. If you want to enable the evms graphical tools, you can recompile evms later on. 

If you don't require any additional networking-related tools (such as rp-pppoe or a dhcp client) continue with Configuring the Bootloader. 

and 

Optional: Framebuffer

If you have configured your kernel with framebuffer support (or you used genkernel's default kernel configuration), you can activate it by adding a vga and/or a video statement to your bootloader configuration file. 

First of all you need to know what type of framebuffer device you're using. If you use a Gentoo patched kernel tree (such as gentoo-sources) you will have had the possibility of selecting vesafb-tng as the VESA driver type (which is default for these kernel sources). If this is the case, you are using vesafb-tng and do not need to set a vga statement. Otherwise you are using the vesafb driver and need to set the vga statement. 

The vga statement controls the resolution and color depth of your framebuffer screen for vesafb. As stated in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt (which gets installed when you install a kernel source package), you need to pass the VESA number corresponding to the requested resolution and color depth to it. 

The following table lists the available resolutions and colordepths and matches those against the value that you need to pass on to the vga statement. 

 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 
256 0x301 0x303 0x305 0x307 
32k 0x310 0x313 0x316 0x319 
64k 0x311 0x314 0x317 0x31A 
16M 0x312 0x315 0x318 0x31B 

The video statement controls framebuffer display options. It needs to be given the framebuffer driver (vesafb for 2.6 kernels, or vesa for 2.4 kernels) followed by the control statements you wish to enable. All variables are listed in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt, but we'll inform you about three most-used options: 

Control Description 
ywrap Assume that the graphical card can wrap around its memory (i.e. continue at the beginning when it has approached the end)  
mtrr Setup MTRR registers  
mode (vesafb-tng only)
Set up the resolution, color depth and refresh rate. For instance, 1024x768-32@85 for a resolution of 1024x768, 32 bit color depth and a refresh rate of 85 Hz.  

The result of those two statements could be something like vga=0x318 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap or video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85. Remember (or write down) this setting; you will need it shortly. 

Now continue by installing GRUB or LILO. 

Sorry about the size of the post but i figured if I want to learn this I am going to have to show effectively the steps I took in the hope that any mistakes I made while show so they can be fixed ....also I wanted to stick with an O/S like gentoo as at least if I need to configure it all myself I know whats on it .....you see thats what ive found the problem to be with some linux flavours ......some of them provide you with a great windowing system and applications but it is hard to track down any bugs as  one is not sure what it is safe to remove .....hopefully if i build a system near to the ground up I will gain an understanding of the needs of lots of linux apps and wont be breaking my system as much as I have in the past :_) ........I have installed things with success before but what confuses me still is that in the docs they skim over a config file and tell you just to fill it in yourself and it gives you options like var = qt or kde  or gnome  and then another var thats got to coincide with a choice you made on the first var but it doesnt really explain whether its a requirement to fill in the config file in question? (I do however need a windowing system .....sorry about the final BAD explination about the file as I cant find the config file that im trying to describe in the docs anymore lol) 

Bye for now  
David


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## nick255 (Jan 23, 2006)

Hi, im not sure what video cad you have but i remember when i was running gentoo and had an nvidia geforce 6800, i had to pick the nvidia frame buffer module when compiling the kernel.

If its garbled on startup its probably because you are using a frame buffer/res thats not compatible with ur vid card frame buffer, if you remove the  "vga=0x318 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap or video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85." from the grub/lilo config files for bootup then it should probably work.

I think the last part of your post refers to xorg.conf? i havnt used gentoo for ages so my memory isnt that good.

I do rememeber that you can either get xorg to generate a general config file itself, which didnt really work properly in my case, or you can get it to make one based on you answering some questions about ur videocard/monitor specs or you can create it manually.

Did you get any error messages when xorg failed to start? its probably related to videocard driver / or xorg.conf entry.

Regarding your networking situation i dont think you need to add any extra scripts.


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## monte84 (Aug 24, 2011)

try editing xorg.conf 
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
change the driver line, will look something like this
Driver "xxx"
change to 
Driver  "vesa" 

see if that helps your garbled display, and did you emerge a desktop environment?


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## LordJummy (Aug 25, 2011)

Why do you want gentoo if you don't fully understand how it works? There's not really any point to it unless you need very specific optimizations for getting the most out of your cpu for compiling and shit. Just use ubuntu.

I can't tell you how many ignorant web hosting clients of mine have requested to install gentoo on their servers remotely, then I setup a kvm for them to install and later I get a call at 4AM telling me they fucked up the install and need me to help.

I had one client who took literally a month to get it installed, and it was still messed up because he didn't do it properly. I ended up imaging it with CentOS and everything worked perfectly. After several of those I quit offering custom installs. Best to support only one or two distributions for quality control and security.

Anyways,

You shouldn't mess with things you don't understand


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## tritron (Sep 13, 2011)

I would recommended arch Linux it is fully optimized from box


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## Wrigleyvillain (Sep 13, 2011)

Yeah that's the main advantage to Gentoo--you can compile everything and thus tailor to your hardware and specific needs. But really kind of overkill for you, at least right now.


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