Install LiveDVD 12.1 to hard disk drive


 * Here is how to install the Gentoo LiveDVD 12.1 to Hard Disk Drive.
 * Copied from Install LiveDVD 11.2 to hard disk drive and modified for 12.1
 * Install LiveDVD 11.2 to hard disk drive was based on HOWTO Lightning fast install from LiveCD

Partition the HDD

 * If your harddrive is larger then 2TB, you'll have to use "parted".
 * If your harddrive is less them 2TB, you can use "fdisk" (which is a little easier).
 * If you are not familiar with partitioning your harddrive in Linux, refer to the Gentoo Handbook for more information and directions.
 * Using parted to Partition your Disk
 * Using fdisk to Partition your Disk

Command (m for help): n Partition type: p  primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free) e  extended Select (default p): p Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1 First sector (2048-62914559, default 2048): Using default value 2048 Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-62914559, default 62914559): +512M Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 512 MiB is set
 * Create a primary partition for boot (/boot) that is 512M. E.g.

Command (m for help): n Partition type: p  primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free) e  extended Select (default p): p Partition number (1-4, default 2): 2 First sector (1050624-62914559, default 1050624): Using default value 1050624 Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (1050624-62914559, default 62914559): +2G Partition 2 of type Linux and of size 2 GiB is set
 * Create a swap partition (usually somewhere between 512M and 2G). E.g.

Command (m for help): n Partition type: p  primary (2 primary, 0 extended, 2 free) e  extended Select (default p): p Partition number (1-4, default 3): 3 First sector (5244928-62914559, default 5244928): Using default value 5244928 Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (5244928-62914559, default 62914559): Using default value 62914559 Partition 3 of type Linux and of size 27.5 GiB is set
 * Create a primary partition for the root filesystem (/) that is at least 15G. E.g.

Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered!
 * Write the changes to the disk using "w". E.g.

Calling ioctl to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. Gentoo-2012 ~ #

Copy the DVD to your new filesystem

 * Will take around 12GB

Then run these two commands...

tar cvf - -C /dev/. | tar xvf - -C /mnt/gentoo/dev/

tar cvf - -C /etc/. | tar xvf - -C /mnt/gentoo/etc/


 * You might want to drop the "-v"s on the cp operations in order to not jam important error messages.
 * Apparently due to the underlying aufs messing up inode numbers, it has been observed that cp attempts to make hardlinks in strange places.
 * If you encounter this, try copying the affected subtrees once more, over the first attempt.
 * If the copyin' failes (ex. /emul) - then remove the folder name (ex. emul) in /usr/share/genkernel/defaults/initrd.defaults