Let me set the stage here first. This is a brand new blank hard drive, in an emachine, running a Celeron 766 MHz processor and 128 MB of PC100 memory. Also, it has a DVD and CDROM, 20 GB Seagate HDD, and Realtek RTL8139 NIC. First, as one of the previous posters stated, I was never "prompted to select my preferred keymap", nor are there instructions on how to do so. I figured no big deal, I'll just skip this then. The next problem I had was: "Tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors", when downloading the "stage2-i686_pentium3-1.4_rc1.tar.bz2" file and extracting it. The command I used was: "tar -xvjpf /mnt/gentoo/stage2-i686_pentium3- 1.4_rc1.tar.bz2" When I tried to download "stage3-i686_pentium3-1.4_rc1.tar.bz2" from Lynx, it just ends with an error telling me I don't have permissions to do that (can't give you the exact error, because it flies by on the screen so fast I could hardly see it). I used the exact instructions on the http://www.gentoo.org/doc/build.html site to install everything too. I ran Mount, and it says all drives have R/W access, except the CDROM which is Read- Only of course. Once again, I figured it's probably nothing, maybe a timestamp or something minor was wrong, like some obscure file didn't extract correctly - althought he stage 3 should have downloaded correctly, I was never prompted to Save the file. I setup the Eth0 again and again, always with the same exact problems, which doesn't make sense, because I can download those files fine with other OS'es, and I tested the files with WinRAR, and they are fine on the server (or so it says). The last error I got, and I don't know if this is normal, because I haven't installed GRUB yet (to the best of my knowledge anyway), was: "OS Error: [Errno 30] Read-only file system: '/boot/grub'" after running "emerge system" (this error was one of the last lines listed). On the website, it's Step 13. of the installation. Once again, I'm going to proceed, and assume it doesn't apply to me. I have a strange feeling I'm going to end up formating this drive though, because something's not working right, and start all over again. I have a feeling that some of this may be from the Partitions, which I believe are correctly created: Boot type 83/ext3, Swap type 82/Linux Swap, Root type 83/ext3. Also, the "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdaBOOT bs=1024 count=1024" command did not work for me. I originally was going to set this up as a dual boot machine, but later decided to delete the Win98 partition I had. Either way, the command did not work either with/without the Win98 partition, and it warned me that the sector size was not 1024! Sorry this is so long. This really seems like a promising OS. I just hope I'm able to get it up and running. I'm a computer technician, and if I can't get this working with these instructions, there's no way the average guy will either. I just want to see Microsoft go down in flames after their new licensing agreement. I've used several different types of Linux/Unix platforms throughout the years (Caldera, SuSE, Slackware, RedHat, QNX, and FreeBSD) so I'm familiar with the OS, but am in no way an expert at any of them. If you need more specifics on the errors, let me know.
I'll add my solutions/suggestions/comments in the same paragraph sectioning style you've chosen. First off, make sure you're using the correct module for your Realtek card, which is " There is documentation on how to set the keymap. It's in /etc/rc.conf. Doced here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/build.xml Code listing 16.9: basic configuration # nano -w /etc/rc.conf download like this wget http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/releases/1.4_rc1/x86/stage3- i686_pentium3-1.4_rc1.tar.bz2 (hopefully you'll realize that needs to be one line) and make sure the md5sum is b922d8626a65122f358a6c92ec5dede8 stage3-i686_pentium3-1.4_rc1.tar.bz2 For permission problem, check the pwd you're in. What module are you trying to load for your nic? does ifconfig -a look correct? use 'nohup command' (if it's included with the CD, I don't know) when stuff flies by on the screen. tail the nohup.txt file to see when the command is finished. Then cat nohup.txt|less. If that doesn't work run the command that gives the error with a |less or |more to make it pause when the screen gets full. I don't know about the grub error, unless you're trying to install it outside of the chroot or something. For future reference, when you see an error... It probably applies to you. Use of=/dev/hda1 instead of of=/dev/hdaBOOT Windows98 partition? I thought the drive was new and blank? *cough**cough* 2 months ago I'd never run 'mount'. I've installed Gentoo about a dozen times since then. Some installs went very smoothly. Some not quite so. But ever since I burned the ISO I've managed to get Gentoo installed somehow where I want it, and I'm only 2 months old in the Linux world. And speaking of the ISO, I suggest you download and burn the Gentoo 1.2 ISO. 1.4 is a release candidate for a reason. And now I wonder... If your NIC doesn't work, how did you download the stage3 tarball anyway?
rlreid13@bellsouth.net, When I said: >the stage 3 should have downloaded correctly, I was never prompted to Save the >file. I setup the Eth0 again and again, always with the same exact problems, >which doesn't make sense, because I can download those files fine with other I didn't mean I was having a problem with the ethernet card. I never had a problem with the NIC itself. The problem I had, was saving the TAR file to the hard drive. I was able to download the file from the server, but it would never let me save it to the hard drive, understand? The only reason I mentioned the NIC, is I thought maybe it was corrupting the TAR file on the download, which wasn't the case. Also, when I said: "when stuff flies by on the screen", I was in Lynx then, trying to download the TAR file, not at a command prompt. So the error was on the Status Bar, but disappeared before I could write it down. I finally did write down the error, and it was: "Alert!: Cannot write to file." I was logging in as the Root, so the permissions weren't a problem. I actually did find the problem yesterday morning, and was able to fix it. Basically, the Partitions weren't being created correctly, even thought cfdisk and fdisk said they were, and so did df -H. I had to run cfdisk, remove all the partitions, and save it blank. Then reboot and recreate everything again. I don't know if that was a problem caused by Win98 or by cfdisk removing a Win98 partition... As for the keymap, it was never really a problem, but the instructions made it sound like a menu was going to automatically pop up when I started the installation, prompting me to choose my keymap. Also, the Grub error wasn't really a Grub error at all. It all goes back to the basic problem of, the drive was partitioned, and everything was supposedly setup correctly, yet I couldn't write data to the drive. Everything was perfect. It should have worked, but didn't. That's why I was scratching my head in confusion, thinking, "Why isn't this working?". It wasn't until a friend suggested removing all the partitions, using cfdisk, and Writing out the changes (blankness), that I was able to remove the corruption in my Master Boot Record / Boot Sector. From then on out, I WAS able to Write Data to the hard drive, and everything went more according to plan. >Use of=/dev/hda1 instead of of=/dev/hdaBOOT >Windows98 partition? I thought the drive was new and blank? As for the Win98 partition and the hard drive being blank, that is correct. I USED to have Win98 on that hard drive, and wasn't sure if that was what caused the problem(s) or not, with the master boot record and partitions (being unable to write data to the hard drive). Win98 was removed from the hard drive, so the drive was blank before installing Gentoo. Originally I tried to dual boot, but after all the problems I was having, I just removed the 98 partition completely, using cdfisk. See what I'm saying? I wasn't sure if Win98 left some kind of residual in the Boot Sector, so I just removed it.
For all intents and purposes, this problem is fixed now.
just FYI, # grub root (hd0,0) setup (hd0) <--- quit will overwrite/fix the MBR if need be in the future. Anyway, congrats! Glad you got all fixed. And glad an fdisk problem didn't leave a sour taste.
