Arch Linux

Rad

Member

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2

Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

Hi, I'm new to arch but I've been an old school linux user for a while now. Mostly Gentoo, but some Debian here and there. I'd really like to give Arch a try, but I have many applications already installed in Gentoo, that would be a pain under any distro to "rebuild" for example, I have a working X + Compiz-Fusion setup, and I'm not sure where all the config files are stored, (My guess is most of them are at $HOME, but I can't be sure.) Anyway, to the main point, would there be any way (hd space not an issue) to install arch over gentoo, or just copy /usr/bin/ and /usr/lib(64)/ and just remove/edit key files? (Ive heard there is only /etc/rc.conf in Arch.) If anyone has ever made this leap, let me know how it was made, and what errors you ran into.

        Thanks,
               Rad

kumico

Member

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 224

Website

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

rename all the main directories
etc, usr, dev, bin, lib etc
then mount the partition to /mnt in the install disk

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

Welcome to Arch!

It wouldnt work -- it's a much much more complicated matter than that. Don't waste time even trying. Each distro configures things differently, so all the libraries wouldn' work, and pacman's database wouldn't know of the files. Put simply, it'd be a disaster.

It'd be _far_ simpler to install Arch on a clean partition.

TheSaint

Member

From: my computer

Registered: 2007-08-19

Posts: 1,523

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

I've moved from Mandrake to Arch, only changed the UID on the user HOME. Obviously home is a different partition.

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do it good first, it will be faster than do it twice the saint

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

Back up your $HOME and your /etc, and put them somewhere safe. That will take of your configs, both system-wide and user-level. Do a clean Arch install, and reinstate your configs - be prepared to do some tweaking to accommodate things like different paths etc. Make use of the wiki as required.

Oh, and welcome to Arch!

Mantaar

Member

Registered: 2007-12-17

Posts: 70

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

I can't see where Compiz Fusion would need such a complicated setup procedure - under Arch such things tend to be rather painless.

Do, what tomk suggested, copy /etc and your ~/-Dotfiles. But please, by any circumstances, don't even think of just blindly copying them over. This would surely get you into trouble, especially if you do so with /etc. Path names, security configs, whatever, this could all go wrong. And some stuff won't even work. So merge them thoughtfully.

Keeping Gentoo's binaries won't work, but that's what you've already been told. I just came over from Gentoo a week ago (I'm a freshman, too ) and learned that things are set up differently on Arch. In no way worse, but sometimes not compatible (library names, path names...).

---

Guy #1: I'd totally hit that.
Guy #2: Dude, I'd hit that so hard whoever could pull me out would become the King of England.
--College Walk, Columbia University (Overheard in NY)

Rad

Member

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2

Re: Moving from Gentoo to Arch without format?

I can't see where Compiz Fusion would need such a complicated setup procedure - under Arch such things tend to be rather painless.

Thats reason #1 why I'm switching, and normally I don,t think its a big deal, but I'm running 64bit, making things that much more complicated... I'm tired of compiling everything from source too.

In the end a clean wipe, with some backed config files wont be to hard, alright thanks!

(Also, MAN I heard there wasn't a lot of arch users, maybe true, but at least they're helpful!)

      Rad.