Charlie & Gentoo

[teacher]

Charlie is getting ready to try Gentoo once again. He has upgraded his laptop again and now is ready. He wants to take his second Windows partition and convert it using fdisk without messing up anything. XP is a little low on space but here are the particulars so far: Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylindersUnits = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytesDevice Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/hda1 * 1 3751 30129876 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)/dev/hda2 3752 9729 48018285 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)/dev/hda5 3752 3897 1172713+ 83 Linux/dev/hda6 5066 9729 37463548+ b W95 FAT32/dev/hda7 3898 4293 3180838+ 83 Linux/dev/hda8 4294 5012 5775336 83 Linux/dev/hda9 5013 5065 425691 82 Linux swap / SolarisPartition table entries are not in disk orderhda1.......XPhda2.......ext' Mdkhda6.......fat32hda5,7,8,9 Mdk 10.0Wish to make hda6 into two linux partitions

[Bruno]

No . . no . . no . . no . . not in 2 partitions . . that will make a big big mess of his mandrake 10 !! . . . reformat the fat32 into Ext3 yes, that is possible . . but better use Diskdrake in the MCC . . . In The MCC --> Mount Points --> Partitions:1). Click on partition hda62). Unmount the partition ( if it is mounted )3). "Troggle to expert mode" ( big button in the bottom of the GUI )4). The button marked "Type" . . and you will get a popup where you can choose what type of format you want to make that partition5). The button marked "Format" to actually format that partition in the "type" chosen in 46). Done7). Reboot to write the new partition table to HDB) Bruno

[charlie]

The hda6 partition is 37 GB (/dev/hda6 5066 9729 37463548+ b W95 FAT32) and all I need is about 6-8 GB . I feel a little uncomfortable using MCC partition drake , is there an easier wayto make the size partition I need , the rest would be fat32Charlie

[Bruno]

NO . . there is no way you can take off a part of that partition without completely messing up the partition table and thus making Mandrake inpossible to boot :DAlso on resizing data on the fat might get lost . . Bruno

[teacher]

Also on resizing data on the fat might get lost . .

Does resizing data work on people too?

[Bruno]

LOL . . . maybe . . . but you could end messed up too . . :DB) Bruno

[charlie]

The loss of data on hda6/37gb drive is not a problem . everything has been moved or burned on a dvd , All I need to do is create a 7 something gb linux partition and leave the rest as a fat 32 Will this make the problem any easier to solveCharlie

[teacher]

Why could Charlie not go into the Mandrake Control Center and on to the Partitioning and let Mandrake divide the hda6 into two partitions? Would not it take on the next available number and not move all the partition numbers?I seem to have noticed recently that the numbers jump around and are no longer listed sequentially. I just made a partition yesterday and it was labeled hda4 instead of hda16 as I expected. All my other partition numbers stayed exactly the same. Then to be on the safe side, while in the Mandrake Control Center, he could go to the boot tab and rerun his Lilo.

[Bruno]

The point is that the partitions only get written to disk at a reboot . . . so you do not really know what the numbers will be after the reboot . . . and not only lilo needs to be adapted, also fstab needs adaption ( hda7, hda8, hda9 ) if numbers change. And I am pretty sure they will change. Sure you can use a Live CD to make those changes and chroot the / to write the new lilo . . . but the risk of getting confused and ending up reinstalling is big.So really, in this case better wipe all above hda1 ( so not wipe XP ) and completely partition the rest again, re-installing Mandrake, and keep free space for Gentoo. Bruno

[charlie]

This is a little more complitated than I thought If I understand correctly Make everything aboveXP a large linux partition and then add Mandrake 10gb and gentoo 8gb . Ok but there will be space left over , is it possible to make it a fat32 as well ??????Charlie

[Bruno]

Sure you can make a FAT32 partition too . . . but I would put it at the end so if ever you want to add another distro you can take of a slice without messing up the full partition table . . . always have the "free" space at the end.So make a good plan for your partitions, don't touch the XP partition so you won't have to re-install that one, but re-arrange all other partitions from scatch ( And use Diskdrake to do so, also the FAT32 partition . . . Diskdrake can do that too ) Bruno

[teacher]

I have yet to have my partition numbers change after a reboot. Whatever Mandrake changes them to in the partition manager is what they have remained. :)Charlie, it looks like you are going with Bruno's recommendation. Leave the rest of your space unformatted and then you can make it whatever you want later on!

[charlie]

JuliaLooks like I might have it setup Used a little mandrake's partition manager and gentoo's . Mandrale is installed , needs some configuring , have XP working and will now see how gentoo works . What I did is a combination of yours and Brunos help , I did make the remaning extra space fat32 , but hopefull that could or will change In gentoo , 30 meg for boot. 500 meg swap and 6.5gb for root . two woorking , one to go Charlie

[teacher]

That sounds good Charlie. That gives you some room. I was looking at my Gentoo space yesterday and of 19GB set aside for it I was 80% in use. I thought that was a little high so I went exploring and discovered I had Mandrkae DVD, PCLos ISO, etc, to the tune of at least 8 GB in distros. If you are not careful you can overrun your space but I use Gentoo for everything these days so I was not really surprsied. That was why I made it such a big space! How much are you using for home or is that in the 6.5GB?

[charlie]

JuliaRound 1&2 today , removing drigts of snow from the car Then I installed , round3 , the snapshotsstages and distrfiles Chrooted in to gentoo and installed genkernel, all... Looking at the instructionsI have fstab is a step or two away.... some differences between 'Drake's fstab and the info in the manualDrake on cdrom /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0Gentoo/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user 0 0There are similar ones for hard drives, floppy and memory sticks Trying to save problems before I get too far along The home dir is in the 6.5gb , should have did this part different One thing I do is save the iso files on the HD fat32 partitions ., and there is still a little fine tuneing on Mdk10.1Charlie

[teacher]

Do it the Gentoo way. You must because that is how Gentoo identifies the drives. Also, make sure you include the /proc proc proc line. Those little things are very necessary. Your fstab will be different with different distros because it is based upon how each distro identifies partitions and the various drives.

[charlie]

third try at a postJulia before I charge along , I have noticed differences in the naming of the cdrom drives in Mdk andGentoo in fstab or do they make a differenceGentoo cdrom/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,user 0 0Mandrake cdrom/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0/dev/hdd /mnt/cdrom2 auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0Charlie

[teacher]

You can name your CD drives whatever you choose. I actually have changed mine to DVD and CD so I can keep straight which drive is which. This is the time to do it before you go any further.

[teacher]

My Gentoo Fstab:

#/dev/BOOT              /boot           ext2            noauto,noatime  1 1/dev/hda13              /               ext3            noatime         0 0/dev/hda5               none            swap            sw                     0 0/dev/cdroms/cdrom0      /mnt/cdrom      iso9660         noauto,user            0 0/dev/cdroms/cdrom1      /mnt/cdrom1     iso9660         noauto,user            0 0#/dev/fd0               /mnt/floppy     auto            noauto                 0 0none                    /proc/bus/usb   usbfs           defaults               0 0# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!none                    /proc           proc            defaults               0 0# glibc 2.2 and above expects tmpfs to be mounted at /dev/shm for# POSIX shared memory (shm_open, shm_unlink).# (tmpfs is a dynamically expandable/shrinkable ramdisk, and will#  use almost no memory if not populated with files)# Adding the following line to /etc/fstab should take care of this:none                    /dev/shm        tmpfs           defaults               0 0

This is how it came out. Notice that mine has an iso9660 in the CD line that yours is missing. Other than that, they look the same for the CD drive!

[charlie]

Julia I have copied your fstab and printing it out Noticed a few differences than what I have stared working on #/dev/BOOT I have this on a /dev/hdan so youarrangement on you drive is different thaan mineI un remed the floppyas I will need it , noted the changes for the cdrom , what do I need for theHdrives ............../dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 or /win_c ????Charlie

[teacher]

You can name your hda1 whatever you would prefer. I personally would use the win_c if it is an active windows distro. If that were the case for me I would probably name it XP or whatever just because it is fewer keystrokes and because I have been known to have Fat partitions that did not have any windows on them at all!

[charlie]

I am up to the lilo.confg, pondered a minute and found this as a possible soultion for bootingwith my other distros Am I on the right track and will it work ??????

[root@localhost harry]# mkdir /mnt/gentoo[root@localhost harry]# mkdir /boot/gentoo[root@localhost harry]# mount /dev/hda10 /mnt/gentools /mnt/gentooboot@                   kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1  System.map-2.6.9-gentoo-r1initrd-2.6.9-gentoo-r1  lost+found/

I now have the Gentoo kernel and initrd files in a dir in Mandrake , Now is it possible to copy and paste the Gentoo lilo.config info into Mandrakes lilo.conf, the hda numbers are correct ???

##For genkernel usersimage=/boot/gentoo/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1  label=Gentoo  read-only  root=/dev/ram0  append="init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda10"  initrd=/boot/gentoo/initrd-2.6.9-gentoo-r1

Charlie

[teacher]

Since you are using the genkernel that is the way to go! I don't use the genkernel so I had to do a little research first. This is assuming that your boot files are kept in the boot/gentoo folder of the distro holding your Lilo.Go for it!

[teacher]

This is also assuming that partition hda10 is your /mnt/hda/gentoo partition.

[charlie]

Didn't work out as expected....

append="init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda10

the ..... linuxrc...........is the problem and gives kernel panic so back to the drawing boards Charlie

[teacher]

Ok. Guess we will do this the old fashioned way:

image=/boot/gentoo/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1       label="Gentoo"       root=/dev/hda10       append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5"       read-only

[charlie]

I can boou Gentoo using the Mdk Lilo.conf but when it comes to emerge Xorg it is unableto connect to the net ??????I made some changes to the lilo on Gentoo and I have the impression that I have a broblem withthe root, boot partitions ... The following allows Gentoo to boot

 image=/boot/gentoo/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r1      label="Gentoo2K4"      root=/dev/hda12      #root=/dev/ram0      #append="init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/hda12"      initrd=/boot/gentoo/initrd-2.6.9-gentoo-r1      append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda5"      read-only

Charlie

[teacher]

Did you have your Internet configured before you went to boot again through Drake? If not, you best go back to those pages.

[charlie]

A few winter problems , now I am back with Gentoo I cleaned up the fstab and lilo filesand Gentoo boots up to the user prompt Before the end of the boot up brocess there are two errormessages 1 Problen starting needed services 2 "netmount" was not startedpreviously you mentioned the net config files , but the are other "needed services" Will look atmy printed manual to see where to start , but would apreciate any starting point filesCharliePS can I work on these in a terminal from Mdk ??? as a su user

[teacher]

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/hand...ook_part1_chap3Book Chapter 3 - Automatically Configuring the Network would be an excellent place to start. ;)Dealing with winter issues - Would that perhaps mean shoveling out from underneath a good deal of snow? I'm glad I don't live that far north! The main issue at this point is do you have any network? Did eth0 boot ok?