Grant wrote:
> I'm getting ready for a remote Gentoo install.  I'd like to avoid any
> sort of CD/USB/floppy usage.  I can select a variety of different
> distros to be preinstalled on the system.  Can I end up with the same
> Gentoo system installing from another distro as I can from a LiveCD?
> I've read over:
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml#doc_chap5
>
> and it sounds like I may not be able to end up with one big root
> partition like this:
>
> Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1           5       40131   83  Linux
> /dev/sda2               6          68      506047+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda3              69       19457   155742142+  83  Linux
>
> If the preinstalled distro has a partition table like this, I won't be
> able to make a separate partition for Gentoo.  If the preinstalled
> distro has separate large partitions, I will be able to install Gentoo
> on one of the partitions, but I won't ever be able to set up a
> partition table like the above with one big root partition.
>
> Is that correct or do I have this all wrong?
>
> - Grant
>
>   
That is basically correct, you can't remove the root partition, while it
is in use....

What you could do though, depending on how big that boot partition is,
is copy the live CD to the boot partition, set a boot option to boot
that as the root, and then do your normal install in the main big
partition.....

I've never done, or tried this, but it should work....The minimal
install cd is ~50MB I think....

All that said, I'm an LVM guy myself, and like to have a few partitions
about for different things depensding on the machines usage. :)