So what's the question?


You can install gentoo from a live cd, in fact you could try to drop to
single user mode and fire up a new kernel via the LiveCD, but alas that may
be a bit precarious.

Next to that I'd say format your file system and go from the LiveCD, why
don't you ahve console access?

Simply use the current paritions hwever if this is a "Dedicated" system
remember to format them before hand.

XFS, Ext3 and Reiser are all good, I'm partial to XFS myself but I'd advise
you to do some resarch.

HTH.

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 6:58 AM, Nevynxxx <nevyn@anferny.me.uk> wrote:

> 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. :)
>
>


-- 
Hazen Valliant-Saunders
IT/IS Consultant
(613) 355-5977