Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Fwd: [install] emerge gentoo-sources fails

[Martin Herrman]

Hi Duncan,

first of all: thanks for your extensive reply!

In the mean while I have survived today's traffic jams and got back
home to dive into this problem again.

I came up with the idea that maybe burning the iso image to CD has
failed, so I downloaded the iso again and... discovered that I was
using 2008.0 instead of 2008.0-r1.. So I downloaded the latest one,
burned it on CD and started the install again. Emerging the kernel
sources now works :-)

I have used slackware, redhat, mandrake and debian before (in that
order) and about 2 years ago switched to Ubuntu because it was so easy
to use. But it's also bloated (it is even hard to compile your own
kernel) and that's why I started to use Gentoo 2 months ago on my
notebook. I liked it (compared to FreeBSD: that ports system is
documented so badly..)!

I plan to compile my own kernel (as I did years ago before using
ubuntu), but are currently using genkernel to have my system at least
running well. When install is finished, I will configure the kernel on
my own.

Thanks for your help so far!

Regards,

Martin

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net> wrote:
> "Martin Herrman" <martin@×××××××.nl> posted
> 40bb8d3b0810191143n628adc43n644e0c4e5686bc3d@××××××××××.com, excerpted
> below, on  Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:43:20 +0200:
>
>> I want to install gentoo on my brand new quadcore, following the amd64
>> handbook install manual. $emerge gentoo-sources fails:
>
> I don't know why you're getting binary data in your environment, unless
> it perhaps has to do with unicode or the like.
>
> Since I know bash scripting reasonably well (well enough to debug and
> write my own when necessary), I'd probably modify the ebuild and/or
> eclasses as necessary to trace it down, as I have with various other
> problems with ebuilds and initscripts over the years. (FWIW, taking apart
> initscripts back on Mandrake, in the 8.x era, was how I /learned/ bash.)
> However, that's not likely to work so well if you don't know bash and
> aren't inclined to try to learn it at this point.
>
> However, all that said, you're in luck to some extent, as it's the kernel
> you're having problems with, and it really doesn't matter where or how
> you get your kernel.  Here, I already knew how to configure and build my
> own mainline kernel.org vanilla kernel (having learned in those first few
> weeks after switching to Linux, again, back on Mandrake), so I simply
> stuck whatever kernel the system decided it wanted in
> /etc/portage/profile/package.provided so portage didn't try to install
> it, and did my usual kernel.org kernel download, make oldconfig, build
> and install routine, much as I did back on Mandrake, with only a couple
> changes as appropriate for my then new Gentoo install.
>
> So I'd suggest doing similar.  Download, configure, build and install
> whatever kernel you like, say the mainline Linus kernel.org kernel, stick
> a line in package.provided to tell portage not to worry about the kernel,
> and don't worry about the ebuild failure.  Of course, doing it the first
> time while learning how will take some time, and your first kernel or two
> (or three or five or...) may not boot, and the next set may boot but be
> missing functionality if you were conservative in what you configured or
> you'll be building extra if you were liberal in what you configured, but
> there are good instructions for the basics, you can check to see what's
> loaded in your running (livecd or whatever) kernel and use that as a base
> config, and the second time will be easier, the third time easier than
> that, and before you know it, it'll be old hat.  (Still, I sometimes
> wonder what the new config options do when I update and configure a new
> kernel, but it's fairly safe to say configure all new hardware out once
> you get a kernel configured for your system, and on the general
> functionality, configure it the best you can, and if it doesn't boot, or
> does but is missing something you need, boot back to the old kernel if
> necessary, change that bit of the config, rebuild, and retry.)
>
> Yes, all this a challenge and will take some time, but then you'll be
> left with a system better configured to your specific needs and a better
> understanding of how it works and what to do to fix it when it breaks.
> Gentoo was always targeted at the person who wasn't afraid of a bit of
> learning now and then.  If you're more comfortable with the distribution
> making those types of decisions and shipping prebuilt binaries for you,
> lots of other distributions out there will be a much better fit for you
> than Gentoo.
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
>
>
>