[coLinux-users] Howto - Installing Gentoo in coLinux (was Re: Does colinux work with gentoo 2006.1?)

[Jason <ja...@co...>]

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It was actually fairly easy. Note that these instructions will
reference chapter/section numbers from the 2006.1 installation
handboot, however I will try to provide enough context by including
the section name that this should be usable in the future with very
little modification.

Note that these instructions assume you know what you're doing with a
Gentoo install, and that you have enough knowledge of how coLinux
works that you won't need help modifying or creating the configuration
file.

1) Install coLinux with the gentoo image download it provides. This
may work with the debian image, but I didn't try it.

2) On your Windows file system, in the directory you want to store
your coLinux image, create your root and swap files. I made a 10G root
and 256M swap. There is a (mis-named) wiki on how to create files
suitable for coLinux block devices. see
http://wiki.colinux.org/wiki/HowtoCreateSwapFile
   a) Be aware that fsutil (XP and later) makes spares files. This
means the first time you write data to a block it takes longer than
subsequent times. ie: your mkfs is going to take longer than you think
;) Ditto for the first time you start writing out files and using
swap. To avoid this, don't use sparse files. Personally, I didn't mind
as sparse files are instant-create and let me continue with setting up
coLinux without waiting for large files to be initialize and written
to and performance hit for 'first use' isn't terrible.

3) Edit your coLinux config files to recognize your "new" root and
swap as if they were /dev/cobd2 and and /dev/cobd3

4) Boot coLinux using the Linux image you downloaded.

5) Start following the installation guide at
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml. There are only
a few minor differences that need to be made:
   a) In section 4.c (Using fdisk to Partition your Disk), You don't
partition your "virtual" disk. If you want separate "partitions" use
multiple files on the Windows side.
   b) In section 4.d (Creating Filesystems), I use reiserfs on my
virtual disk. I had to download and compile the reiserfstools (for v3)
into my non-chroot environment as they were not part of the initial
image. This is trivial. They are available from
http://www.namesys.com/ and you don't even have to do the full
install, just get to the point where you have mkreiserfs available.
   c) In sections 5.b/5.c (installting the initial stage tarball)
Getting the stage tarball has multiple options:
      i) If your network is set up to access the internet, section 5.b
(Using a Stage from the Internet) works perfectly.
      ii) If you are instead using section 5.c (Using a Stage from the
Installation CD), you can use scp to transfer the stage tarball to the
coLinux installation if you have networking enabled, but not set up
for Internet use.
      iii) Another option if using 5.c is to mount your CD drive in
coLinux itself for use. See http://wiki.colinux.org/wiki/CdDvdAccess
   d) Section 7.b (Installing the Sources), it's still safe to install
kernel sources (may even be required for some things you want to
install later) but don't compile your own kernel! See the next point.
   e) Section 7.c/7.d (Detailing two different methods of kernel
configuration), don't do this! Use the kernel and modules that came
with the initial image you downloaded. The kernel itself is kept on
the filesystem in your Windows boot. To  "install" the kernel modules,
do this from your non-chrooted installation image:
      # mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules
      # tar -cf - /lib/modules | (cd /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules;tar xvpf -)
   f) Section 8.a (Filesystem Information), make sure to set up your
fstab with the /dev/cobd devices that they *will be* in your final
image (ie: root as /dev/cobd1, swap as /dev/cobd2) not what they are
*now*.
   g) Chapter 10 (Configuring the Bootloader),. You don't need a boot
loader. I installed grub anyway just in case something in the future
insisted on having a bootloader around, but I did not configure it.

And that's really about it! The rest of the install is identical to
the installation guide. Once you get done, shutdown your coLinux
Gentoo install image, modify or create a new config file for coLinux
to point the block devices to your new root/swap, and start it up again!

Enjoy your new coLinux setup! I've actually used this procedure
through many iterations of Gentoo releases whenever I did a windows
re-install for whatever reasons, so these are not specific to 2006.1
(however chapter/section numbers may change between releases)

Another useful note is you may want to comment-out or remove:
<initrd path="initrd.gz" />

from your config file. For some reason, some people report that using
the initrd causes coLinux to only boot properly every second time (I
was one of them, until I found this).

This may be useful to wiki-ize, but I found multiple Gentoo Howtos'
already on the Wiki. If people think it's worthwhile to create yet
another one I can.

Jason

Bing Wen wrote:
> Did you start from scratch or update from a running installation?
> Would you please describe the procedure you switched to 2006.1?
>
> Bing
>
> */Jason <ja...@co...>/* wrote:
>
>     I am using 2006.1 successfully. The only thing I did different
>     from a
>     'regular' gentoo install was copy the modules from the provided
>     Gentoo
>     coLinux image to my new system, so I am using the provided Linux
>     kernel
>     and modules, I did not try to compile my own.
>
>     Jason
>
>
>
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