Installing Gentoo on Dell Latitude X1 (2011) part2

Also check CrunchBang on Dell Latitude X1, distro I am using today!

Before starting the entire fun with kernel, Gentoo manual suggest making sure that the time is set to what we want it to be. I'm checking date and setting timezone to UK one.

(chroot)# date
Thu Jan 20 09:09:04 GMT 2011
(chroot)# cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime
(chroot)# nano /etc/conf.d/clock

In that last file changing CLOCK to GMT.

Time to deal with kernel, the heart of linux system (and windows for that matter, however you have no easy choice to change it as you will). I install kernel sources.

emerge gentoo-sources

Configure and compile kernel and modules.

I use manual process (you may just copy my config file). And once that's done copy kernel to my boot partition. I leave normal name as it's easier to follow versions later. Also copy config file for future reference.

# make && make modules_install
# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.36-gentoo-r5
# cp .config /boot/config-2.6.36-gentoo-r5
# nano /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

With the last one I add ip2200 as a module to be loaded on system boot.

Next I modify fstab to reflect my system:

nano  /etc/fstab

And that ends with:

/dev/sda2   /boot        ext2    noauto,noatime     1 2
/dev/sda3   none         swap    sw                   0 0
/dev/sda4   /            ext3    noatime              0 1
/dev/cdrom  /mnt/cdrom   auto    noauto,ro          0 0
proc        /proc        proc    defaults             0 0
shm         /dev/shm     tmpfs   nodev,nosuid,noexec  0 0

Another step is to finish network configuration.

# nano -w /etc/conf.d/hostname

Set the HOSTNAME to how my LX1 will be seen in the network.

HOSTNAME="bevLX1"

And I'm adding the following line to my /etc/conf.d/net:

config_eth1=( "dhcp" )

Ensure that networking is started at boot:

# cd /etc/init.d
# ln -s net.lo net.eth1
# rc-update add net.eth1 default

Open /etc/hosts and add name of my box to it.

127.0.0.1     localhost bevLX1
::1           localhost bevLX1

emerge wpa-supplicant, because my new environment will not have it otherwise.

# emerge net-wireless/wpa_supplicant

emerge: there are no ebuilds built with USE flags to satisfy "=dev-lang/php-5.3.5[xml]". 
!!! One of the following packages is required to complete your request: 
- dev-lang/php-5.3.5 (Change USE: +xml) 
(dependency required by "dev-lang/php-5.3.5" [ebuild]) 
(dependency required by "php" [argument]) 

and a couple of others, duh. so...

# USE="xml X gd" emerge net-wireless/wpa_supplicant

Now I get Error: circular dependencies. I break them as suggested. And try again.

Success. Quick check to see if my config files didn't get overwritten... No they haven't been.

Set root password:

# passwd

And edit /etc/rc.conf

UNICODE="yes"
EDITOR="/usr/bin/vim"

then I adjust:
/etc/conf.d/consolefont
/etc/conf.d/keymaps

I'm emerging vim at this point cause I simply hate nano.
and a couple of steps from page 9 of Gentoo manual:

# emerge vim
# emerge syslog-ng
# rc-update add syslog-ng default
# emerge vixie-cron
# rc-update add vixie-cron default
# emerge mlocate
# emerge dhcpcd

time to install boot loader. I prefer grub. Once it's installed I edit config.

# emerge grub
# vim /boot/grub/grub.conf

grub.conf looks like this for me:

default 0
timeout 15
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
javascript:void(0)
title Gentoo Linux 2.6.35-r5
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/linux-2.6.36-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/sda4

title Windows 7 Proffesional
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I install manually grub:

# grub --no-floppy

and then in it's command line enter:

root (hd0,1) 
setup (hd0) 
quit

lets go. exit chrooted environment, unmount partitions. Reboot and remove CD.

# exit
~# umount /mnt/gentoo/boot /mnt/gentoo/dev /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo
~# reboot
.
.
.
Failed to load module ipw2200.

To be continued...