the disgruntled Linux surgeon

First I'd like to thank everyone who thinks about installing phaeronix and testing and using it on his computer.

However I have to start with this disclaimer:
This version of phaeronix is the first one to be based on gentoo, and was never intended to be installed on people's hard disk's and used as gentoo. As a consequence I removed the files that define the stuff that was installed and a small overlay directory. However the toolchain used to build the CD including portage ( but without the tree ) are on the CD. So it could be used as a platform to bootstrap a gentoo stage installation.

That being said, this livecd was built from a fully functional and running gentoo system, and the process is reversible, meaning it can be unpacked to the hard disk and used as a precompiled gentoo system. The script to do this was made and has been tested by many people, so the process is not dangerous, not more than any other regular linux install that is.

The script can be run from the gnome menu
"Applications -- Other -- Setup".

The dialogs are short and clear, just read and follow the instructions carefully. One small note here; although installation on reiser4 is a choice, this is a strictly experimental issue. The grub boot loader sometimes fails to install if you use a reiser4 root, and you will have to make a boot partition by hand and setup grub manually. If this sounds scary then you're better off installing to reiserfs. Next version should have more filesystems as an option. The whole process should take about 10 to 15 minutes.

After installing successfully and rebooting into the new system, hardware detection will run once on the first boot. The system can run as it is indefinitely, and if you don't want to learn or use gentoo then just use it as is. No need to compile or update. Of course that is boring, you could have just run from the livecd.

Now follow these steps to get a gentoo system:

* change the root and user passwords. This is important !! There are no open servers by defaultm but it's not my fault if your root password is still root. CHANGE the root password to something strong but easy to remember!

* add a new user if you want.

* http://www.slashproc.net/phaeron/var.tar.gz ( hosted by my good friend Boody )
This packages has the files that are supposed to be in /var/db/pkg , collectively they define the packages the CD was built with. Get it and then unpack this file as root like this :


tar -C / -xzvf var.tar.gz


* http://slashproc.net/phaeron/overlays.tar.gz
This package has a collection of overlays I made to get some exotic or custom packages. Get it and then unpack this file as root like this :


tar -C /usr/local/ -xzvf overlays.tar.gz


* emerge --sync
This command will sync the portage tree. This is a big and download and will take lots of time if your connection is slow.

* Check the settings in /etc/make.conf and /etc/portage/* and change them to your liking. The defaults are a ~x86 system with conservative optimization for i686 and useflags for maximum GTK2 and mutimedia usage. Don't deviate too much from these SANE defaults or you will end up with a crippled system. You have been warned.

* From now on you are on a gentoo system. Recommended reading is the gentoo handbook, to get you started.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml

* emerge -Du world

You will usually now do this command to update your system with the latest versions of software. Note that being on ~x86 means weird errors from ebuilds. Most of these bugs are known and reported in gentoo's bugzilla. I needed to use ~x86 to make a good livecd, But you need some gentoo know how to live at the bleeding edge.

http://bugs.gentoo.org

or

emerge -Du --newuse world

If you changed the default useflags in /etc/make.conf

Some small points:

* Some problems are caused by a few broken/old ebuilds in my overlay. I will add them and their fixes here as I remeber them.
* You should emerge a kernel of choice and use it. Gentoo doesn't support the love-sources kernel. However if you installed on reiser4 make sure your new kernel has support for that.
* If you installed on reiser4 make sure you don't update the grub bootloader. The version installed is patched for reiser4 support. please mask any newer versions by doing the following as root :


echo '>sys-boot/grub-0.96' >> /etc/portage/package.mask


Last but not least. Gentoo organisation is not affiliated in anyway with me. Gentoo linux is a registered trademark of gentoo organisation , their copyrights are reserved bla bla , all the law stuff that will make me immune in the court.

However this whole website is under any license you choose. You could rip it for all I care. I will even do a remastering tutorial some time soon, for those people who were searching the website for the word :D

Yours truthfully.