I have Red Hat, pondering Gentoo

[ColeSlaw]

Here's the deal. I have Red Hat 9 installed right now. I want to try out Gentoo. What will it take to dual boot? Am I going to have to make another partition, or can they be installed on the same one? What conflicts could that potentially cause if it is possible? Should I just kill off Red Hat and start from scratch with Gentoo? Let me know what your opinions are.

Thanks!

[mdwatts]

Either completely remove Redhat and replace with Gentoo or create enough free space to install Gentoo.

http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/

You can safely share the swap partition between distros.

[mart_man00]

when i made the switch i killed off redhat all together.

gentoo isnt that redhat friendly at first, it doenst even look that great. so it kind of weird not see and doing things the redhat way. but i have gentoo on my desktop and redhat 8 on my laptop.

you could just split your partitions like mdwatts was thinking. so you could share boot, home and swap and have lilo let you choose what to boot(change the root= part).

[mdwatts]

If you are planning to dualboot Redhat/Gentoo and have a separate /boot partition for Redhat, do not really share the /boot partition, but install Gentoo's bootloader in it's own root partition and then add a entry in the Redhat bootloader to boot Gentoo.

[mart_man00]

If you are planning to dualboot Redhat/Gentoo and have a separate /boot partition for Redhat, do not really share the /boot partition, but install Gentoo's bootloader in it's own root partition and then add a entry in the Redhat bootloader to boot Gentoo.
why do not share the boot partition?

gentoo needs some special kernel options(the only one that comes to mind if devfs), so why woulnt you want to have the kernel in one /boot drive? are there any specialized file in there(besdies from the kernel and the .maps)?

[ColeSlaw]

Originally posted by mart_man00
when i made the switch i killed off redhat all together.

gentoo isnt that redhat friendly at first, it doenst even look that great. so it kind of weird not see and doing things the redhat way. but i have gentoo on my desktop and redhat 8 on my laptop.


If you've made the switch before are there any recommendations you could make? :) I don't want to screw anything up.

Thanks for any advice on switching you might have.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by ColeSlaw
If you've made the switch before are there any recommendations you could make? :) I don't want to screw anything up.

Thanks for any advice on switching you might have.

If you are completely switching from Redhat to Gentoo, then start the Gentoo install, format the existing partitions and install.

Follow the Gentoo instructions ...

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by mart_man00
why do not share the boot partition?

gentoo needs some special kernel options(the only one that comes to mind if devfs), so why woulnt you want to have the kernel in one /boot drive? are there any specialized file in there(besdies from the kernel and the .maps)?

You need to have a bootloader installed in the Gentoo partition or else it will not boot.

Just add those required options to the Redhat bootloader config as you would for Gentoo's.

And one distro may overwrite the others kernel image or System.map if they are named the same.

[ColeSlaw]

Originally posted by mdwatts
If you are completely switching from Redhat to Gentoo, then start the Gentoo install, format the existing partitions and install.

Follow the Gentoo instructions ...

:eek: Here goes nothing, I'm going to format and begin the install ASAP. (I just have to backup first) If you don't hear from me in 2-3 days, I'm probably still compiling ;)

Thanks fellas!

[arachnyd]

dont install gentoo unless you have at least 2 or 3 days to devote to it. You need to compile the entire system from scratch. Even using a stage3 tarball you have to emerge all your apps.

its worth it once you get everything working, it just takes forever.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by ColeSlaw
:eek: Here goes nothing, I'm going to format and begin the install ASAP. (I just have to backup first) If you don't hear from me in 2-3 days, I'm probably still compiling ;)

Thanks fellas!

See you in a couple of months. Have a nice summer.

:p

Don't forget to backup anything you need to keep from Redhat.

[mart_man00]

there not kidding when they say it will take awhile to install.

i have a p4 3.06ghz (with hyperthreading), 1gb of ram and 300kb-ish connection to a mirror, it took me about 5 hours for the base system. no x, no desktops.

kde took almost a complete day.

if you follow the guide your good. with the options you have to choose from they normally make a recommendation, just go with them.

the kernel is the only thing you can screw up on. if you do, just boot the live cd, mount /boot and chroot backup. so you shouldnt have to start over.

i still miss bluecurve alittle...



mdwatts(or anyone), can you answer my boot question?

<edit>
thread moved fast, didnt see it. i still like the idea of sharing it.....

[mdwatts]

Last time I installed Gentoo (stage1) with X/KDE, it took something like 12-18 hours.

Dual AMD 1800 MP's
1 gb ECC/Registered

:D

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by mart_man00
mdwatts(or anyone), can you answer my boot question?

Which boot question? The one in this thread? I already did I believe.