[PLUG] Gentoo questions.

[Denis Brown]

Hello, Lee.

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004, Lee Jamieson wrote:

> Hiya all.
>
> I am thinking of trying to install gentoo in a couple of months, once I
> have downloaded ISO's and other documentation.  Is there on the net a good
> walk-through install guide?
>
As Bill has pointed out, visit the gentoo website and print off the
documentation.  Excellent!   Have not seen sourcemage - always something
new to discover :-)

> I suppose I want something that I can print out and is aimed at the newbie.
>
As above, it has a printer-friendly version for the main doco.
Supplementary doco (security guide, desktop guide) did not have
printer-friendlies but that may have changed.   Regardless, I printed it
all out and bound it - something I rarely do for printed doco!!

> Any tips, tricks, helpful suggestions?
>
Installation from CD of 2004.0 and 2004.1 went smoothly once I had
discovered and used "ide=nodma" for my hardware configuration!   I had
previously installed several Debian systems and had experienced a RedHat
installation (vers 8) just for the comparison experience, so setting
things up a la Gentoo was an eye opener.

> I am using Mandrake 10.0 Official, and want to learn a bit more about the
> inner workings of linux in general.  I thought that because you have to
> install everything with gentoo from source, it'd be a good way of learning
> that.
>
If you want something more in-depth, the other low-level, "let's learn by
doing" Linux installation that I know of is the "Linux From Source"
distribution.   For that you do need a working Linux installation to
"host" the new one being built but from there on, it is all from source
and step-by-step explained.   A worthwhile reference into the soft
underbelly of Linux.

HTH,
Denis