08.05.13

Install LiveDVD 12.1 to hard disk drive

Contents

Boot into the LiveDVD

From Terminal, become root

sudo su -

Create your filesystems

Partition the HDD

  • If your harddrive is larger then 2TB, you'll have to use "parted".
  • If your harddrive is less them 2TB, you can use "fdisk" (which is a little easier).
  • If you are not familiar with partitioning your harddrive in Linux, refer to the Gentoo Handbook for more information and directions.
  • Using parted to Partition your Disk
  • Using fdisk to Partition your Disk


fdisk /dev/sda
  • Create a primary partition for boot (/boot) that is 512M. E.g.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
   p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
   e   extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-62914559, default 2048):
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-62914559, default 62914559): +512M
Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 512 MiB is set
  • Create a swap partition (usually somewhere between 512M and 2G). E.g.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
   p   primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free)
   e   extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 2): 2
First sector (1050624-62914559, default 1050624): 
Using default value 1050624
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (1050624-62914559, default 62914559): +2G
Partition 2 of type Linux and of size 2 GiB is set
  • Create a primary partition for the root filesystem (/) that is at least 15G. E.g.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
   p   primary (2 primary, 0 extended, 2 free)
   e   extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 3): 3
First sector (5244928-62914559, default 5244928): 
Using default value 5244928
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (5244928-62914559, default 62914559): 
Using default value 62914559
Partition 3 of type Linux and of size 27.5 GiB is set
  • Write the changes to the disk using "w". E.g.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
Gentoo-2012 ~ #


Format the filesystems

mkfs.ext2 -L BOOT /dev/sda1
mkswap /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 -L ROOT /dev/sda3


Mount the filesystems

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot

Copy the DVD to your new filesystem

  • Will take around 12GB
eval `grep '^ROOT_' /usr/share/genkernel/defaults/initrd.defaults`
cd /
cp -avx /$ROOT_LINKS /mnt/gentoo
cp -avx /$ROOT_TREES /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/proc
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/dev
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/sys
mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo/run/udev
Then run these two commands...
tar cvf - -C /dev/ . | tar xvf - -C /mnt/gentoo/dev/
tar cvf - -C /etc/ . | tar xvf - -C /mnt/gentoo/etc/
  • You might want to drop the "-v"s on the cp operations in order to not jam important error messages.
  • Apparently due to the underlying aufs messing up inode numbers, it has been observed that cp attempts to make hardlinks in strange places.
  • If you encounter this, try copying the affected subtrees once more, over the first attempt.
  • If the copyin' failes (ex. /emul) - then remove the folder name (ex. emul) in /usr/share/genkernel/defaults/initrd.defaults

Configure the new system

Bind the LivDVD proc and dev filesystems to the new filesystem

mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev

Chroot in to the new filesystem

chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
env-update && source /etc/profile
cd /dev
rm null
mknod console c 5 1
chmod 600 console
mknod null c 1 3
chmod 666 null
mknod zero c 1 5
chmod 666 zero

Remove the autoconfig service from default boot otherwise your root password is reset every time it starts

rc-update del autoconfig default
rc-update del fixinittab boot

Configure FSTAB

File: nano -w /etc/fstab
/dev/sda3   /            ext4    defaults,noatime     1 1 
/dev/sda1   /boot        ext2    defaults,noatime     1 2 
/dev/sda2   none         swap    sw                   0 0 
/dev/cdrom  /mnt/cdrom   auto    noauto,user          0 0 
proc        /proc        proc    defaults             0 0 
shm         /dev/shm     tmpfs   nodev,nosuid,noexec  0 0 

Copy kernel image and initramfs from the LiveDVD to your new system

mkdir -p /mnt/cdrom/
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom/
cp /mnt/cdrom/boot/gentoo /boot/kernel
cp /mnt/cdrom/boot/gentoo.igz /boot/initramfs

Configure and install GRUB

File: nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 0 
timeout 30 
title Gentoo Linux          
root (hd0,0) 
kernel /boot/kernel real_root=/dev/sda3 vga=791 splash=silent,theme:livecd-12.0 console=tty1 quiet
initrd /boot/initramfs 
grub
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

reboot in to your newly installed Gentoo System