Gentoo Install on a Compaq DL380 Generation 1

Author: Derek Shaw

Introduction

Gentoo good as it is suffers from a couple of problems, in my own personal view, I am sure that some would argue that Gentoo is best and to a certain degree they are right. I have kept my distance from Gentoo for many years, why because it is, or was at least damn difficult to install. SoSLUG of which I am a member of, has steered me carefully down more familiar distro's such as Slackware, Mandrake now Mandriva and Knoppix, however my job demands a much higher involvement in Linux than ever before. I still consider myself a novice with much still to learn especially about Gentoo. SoSLUG is very much about teaching and coaching others the benefits of Linux and Gentoo falls within that category, although as for practicality Gentoo is not a distro that is quick to learn install or update.

Since the introduction of Gentoo 2006 and 2006.1 installation of Gentoo has been much simpler on the majority of select machines, I say select because it doesn't always install direct from the CD/DVD, this distro will nearly always run as as a live CD but sometimes fails for one reason or another to run properly the install script and crashes.

Gentoo is not an easy Operating System to learn but one of it's major plus points is that it can by example teach you so very much about Linux itself. By using Gentoo you begin to appreciate what Linux is about, primarily because everything Destop Apps, Server Apps, Desktops, Services, Daemons all of it is installed by compiling the software from scratch, the use of the various portage files helps customize your server or workstation with the apps you require. I must say at this point from experience, Gentoo on Laptops or some Desktop PC is not worth the time and effort spent installing and configuring, unless you have a very specific job in mind, my advice on anything less than a server or reasonable high spec PC use another distro, the benefit if any from using Gentoo will be minute.

If you are looking for a quick installation overview to install Gentoo I am not sure this is the right tutorial for you, however if you like me wanted to get Gentoo installed on one of the many Compaq servers available on the market then listen up, you might want to hear what I got to say.

I was first introduced to Gentoo about a year ago on Dell Poweredge servers they are fine and will nearly always install without fuss upto version 2005.1 direct from the CD at any rate. However I had a Compaq DL380 Dual Processor with a good quantity of memory 2Gig I think and at the time wanted to learn as much as possible about Gentoo because my employer favored it. I set to work and tried to install Gentoo 2004 and failed miserably not just once but several times. I was beginning to lose despair, may be on a couple of occasions even lost it altogether, then after months of reading and installing, I had more time then, reading and installing and so on I decided to try a different tact.