Help with gentoo install

[coolred]

I am a linux newb, but wa shoping with use of the gentoo handbook and a stage 3 install, I would be able to get it installed correctly. Everything was going fine until I got to
"5.e. Configuring the compile options" in the handbook. Thi si aparently where you have to change a few variables for your system. It asks you to use nano to open the make.conf file. I did this but mine was completely blank, by the sound sof it, it is supposed to contain variables to change. Did I do somethign wrong, or am I misunderstanding it?

I would have posted this on the gentoo forums, but my account has yet to receive an activation email. SO any help I can get here woudl be great. Edit: I just realized I could still at least read the gentoo forums, I found this thread talking about this file. One guy said for a stage 3 install it was okay to not change anything now, leaving it and changing it later. Well since I couldn't do anything there I went to the next step. I don't remember exactly what happened as I was doing this last night, but I think I got to the chroot part and it told me a directory that I needed did not exsist.

Do you think I messed something up earlier in the install? I though I went through step by step.

 

[Praetor]

which version are you using? 2004.2?

 

[cjr22]

It does sound like something messed up in the install. The make.conf file should be there, and the directory missing thing seems to confirm this. What do you get if you do
ls /mnt/gentoo
?

 

[coolred]

Its 2004.1 I think.

I can't say for sure the file isn't there, it did open a file that seemed to be title make.conf, but it was just a blank screen with a blue background and some options at the botom, like ^x and whatnot.

Since I quit the install and deleted the partions, I can't answer your question. I can tell you I do remember going through the mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/gentoo part of the install, without any problems. As far as I could tell unpacking the stage went fine as well as unpacking portage, then I get to the spot with the empty make.conf file.

 

[brjames]

If you give nano the name and path of a non-existand file, it will open a blank file exactly as you describe. Since you say you're new to Linux and don't seem comfortable with nano (nothing wrong with that mind you), I'm guessing you passed the incorrect name or path to nano. Try using less as that will tell you whether or not the file exists:

less /etc/make.conf
less /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

(Advice contingent upon your deciding to continue installing gentoo =). I hope you do, its what I learned Linux on and continue to use to this day)

 

[oog]

the chroot part should definitely work. i've been doing a gentoo install today (from stage1, just for the heck of it), and my /etc/make.conf started out with only a few settings, but it wasn't completely empty.

 

[coolred]

Yeah I missed a step in the install, so I started over, got to the part where you type "emerge system", the system says to find something to do, since this takes a long time. SO I start it up and it goes for like 10-15 seconds and then says it can't install(or unpack or whatever) one of the files, don't remember the name of it. I am beginning to think this is over my head. With the handbook it doesn't seem like it should be that hard, but yet I just can't seem to get it installed.

 

[coolred]

Was thinking of trying slackware instead, but the guide I found for it, uses LILO as the bootloader, which to my knowledge does not work with AMD64, or in my case an opteron, so would that not work, or can i still use grub(static), if so how?

Or should I keep trying gentoo, till I get it right?