[Sussex] gentoo is cool.

[Angelo Servini]

Hello Fellas,

     Just to let you know, I've managed to install gentoo up to the
     point of command line only; so far I'm pleased with my efforts.

     What I did was a GRP/Stage 3 from precompiled binaries.
     
     However, from that point (ie. Partition, create filesystems and
     copy in portage and binaries from disks, then genkernel) I am
     unable to emerge any packages (ie KDE, Mozilla etc) from
     precompiled binaries.

     When I do an   emerge -k packagename    gentoo attempts to grab
     everything from internet connections; ok fair enough, but I
     thought that -k was supposed to grab binaries?.  I tried -K
     and that seems to point to the fact that it cannot find those
     binaries.. if so why?

     I did do the following ok after mounting the cd, im sure of it:

       cp -a /mnt/cdrom/packages/* /usr/portage/packages/

     I have done ls /usr/portage/packages  and everything lists as
     being present in its relevant bz package.

     the weird thing is that before that, emerge -k lilo  did work ok
     - if not I would not be able to multi boot.

     my partitions were set up like so:
     /dev/hdc2  = Linux boot   ext3       bootable
     /dev/hdc3  = Linux swap
     /dev/hdc1  = Windows      fat32
     /dev/hdc5  = Linux root   reiserFS
     /dev/hdc6  = Windows      fat32
     
     As you can see the Linux root was set up on an extended
     partition.  I hope this does not affect the emerge command. I
     can't see how it would.

     Looking at the man page for it - it did mention a $something or
     other variable which could be exported.  If so how does one do
     something like that?

     Apart from that I learned quite a great deal over the past couple
     of days / sleepless nights!  I am getting more and more confident
     at the command line than I used to.

     if the worst comes to the worst its no big deal to clear down the
     partitions and start again (tho not ideal, as I am not giving up
     yet!).

     Also I really do like the matter of fact gentoo website which
     contains a great deal of content / documentation.

     By the way - in looking for a gentoo specific book, I have not
     had much success.
     
     Cheers.

-- 
Best regards,
 Angelo                          mailto:angelo at servini.co.uk