Why is Gentoo 2004.0 so small?

[RedMap]

Usually distros are on ISOs when you download them, so my question is why is Gentoo 2004.0 so small?

gentoo/releases/x86/2004.0/stages/x86/
stage1-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 11.5M
stage2-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 39.9M
stage3-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 87.6M

These aren't ISOs? Are the ISOs available from somewhere for the new Gentoo distro?

[mdwatts]

Have you read about the differences between the stages 1-3 and have you extracted the contents of those files? They should be iso's after extracting.

[bsm2001]

they are the base for each stage.

stage1-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 11.5M every thing compiled from source.
stage2-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 39.9M boot strap is done for you.
stage3-x86-pie-ssp-2004.0.tar.bz2 87.6M stage 1 & 2 are done for you only thing to do is continue with kernel compile on.

These are not iso's. the only .iso that I know of for gentoo is the live cd's.

[MorphiusFaydal]

the .bz2 files are for if you are installing off of Knoppix or Slackware or something like that.

the ISO's are in the folder named 'livecds'

there is a note in the live cd folder that will tell you how the ISOs are to be used..

chris

[RedMap]

I didn't download yet because they looked unnaturally small, so not read anything inside the bz2s. So these are for upgrading from Knoppix etc? Anyway I have Mandrake now but I want a new install.

So if I want an install from scratch I'd use the liveCDs?
I thought these were bootable ones like Knoppix liveCD that run entirely from the CD.

Anyhow the liveCD directories on all the mirrors I have checked so far are empty.

[Hayl]

Originally posted by RedMap
I didn't download yet because they looked unnaturally small, so not read anything inside the bz2s. So these are for upgrading from Knoppix etc? Anyway I have Mandrake now but I want a new install.

So if I want an install from scratch I'd use the liveCDs?
I thought these were bootable ones like Knoppix liveCD that run entirely from the CD.

Anyhow the liveCD directories on all the mirrors I have checked so far are empty.

http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/releases/x86/2004.0/livecd/universal/

there are drectories one level back fro that that have optimized packages for different arches.

[RedMap]

Yup, thanks Hayl.

Was looking for a site closer to UK, but all look more semi-mirrored than anything.

Just one CD! Much less than the 3 CDs of Mandrake 9.1 or Fedora Core 1!

:)

[Hayl]

that is because it has no packages on it.
if you do a stage 1 or 2 (without GRP) you will be downloading most of the source code during the install.

[RedMap]

Just wondering now,

http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/releases/x86/2004.0/livecd/

its got the directories for the processor types as expected, athlon-xp, i686, p3, p4, x86, but I thought 'x86' would universally work on all PCs, so whats special about 'universal'? It works on PPC and other hardware or something like that?

Just wondering, I'll of course download the athlon-xp!

[MorphiusFaydal]

you need the 'universal' disk to install gentoo at all

the athlon-xp disk only contains packages, and does not boot.

you need to boot off of the universal disk, install gentoo off of that, and then you can use the second disk (the athlon-xp disk) to install packages without havin to download all the source code and compile it yourself

chris

[RedMap]

Thanks for that information MorphiusFaydal, I plan to give it a whizz maybe this Sunday, once I buy a load of new blank CDs.