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Gentoo 1.0 and Sony VAIO N505X notebooks

Problem

The kernel of the gentoo-i686-1.0.iso CD image hangs when the kernel options ide2=0x180,0x386 are given at boot-time. Without these options, the external cdrom drive is not recognized. [ Note: This has been solved. Just enter rescue ide2=0x180,0x386 at the boot: prompt and everything will be fine :) Nevertheless I keep this page as it might be helpful in other situations too. ]

Solution

Boot your notebook using the CD image. Do not give any boot options, just hit enter until you get a shell prompt.

Set up your partitions according to the Gentoo 1.0 install guide. Create the right filesystems on them, mount them to the correct mount points.

Add the following lines to /etc/pcmcia/config.opts (e.g. with nano -w):

exclude irq 3 exclude irq 5 exclude irq 10
Load the needed modules (_exactly_ like this):

insmod pcmcia_core cardbus insmod i82365 insmod ds
Remove the Gentoo CD from the external CDROM drive and disconnect the CDROM drive. Connect the network interface card. Load the NIC module:

modprobe pcnet_cs

Start the PCMCIA card manager:

cardmgr

Configure the network. E.g. for DHCP:

dhcpcd eth0

An error message might be displayed, do not mind, just continue. Check whether you have configured your eth0 correctly (e.g. got an IP):

ifconfig

If everything is correct, there should be the entries 'eth0' and 'lo'

Now mount the Gentoo 1.0 CD on a server that is reachable in your LAN and has a SSHD running. Copy the contents (actually one of the stage tbz2 is sufficient) of this remotely mounted Gentoo 1.0 CD to /mnt/gentoo on your notebook. You can do this using scp:

in /mnt/gentoo do:
# scp user@192.168.1.3:/mnt/cdrom/* .

where user is the username on the server, 192.168.1.3 is the IP of the server and /mnt/cdrom is where you mounted the Gentoo CD. You can test the stage tbz2 with 'bzip2 -tvv stage?-*.tbz2' and 'tar -tjvf stage?-*.tbz2'.

From here on you can continue with normal Gentoo 1.0 installation instructions except that you extract the stage tbz2 using

tar -xvjpf /mnt/gentoo/stage?-*.tbz2

(after this you can delete the stage tbz2)

I recommend using the stage3 tbz2 as it saves a lot of time.

Finally, after having compiled your own kernel add the ide2=0x180,0x386 kernel option to your grub boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst). This kernel will probably not hang (at least mine does not), thus you will be able to use your CDROM drive.

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