Best Gentoo Linux Installation Guide 2019 part 1

Summary

Mental Outlaw presents the first part of a Gentoo Linux installation, following the Gentoo AMD64 Handbook. He installs Gentoo in a virtual machine because he cannot record a hardware installation, but says the main steps are similar on physical hardware. This part covers setup through the start of the kernel build; it does not finish the installation.

Main Ideas and Steps

Why Gentoo

The presenter praises Gentoo’s flexibility, speed, and customizability, while warning that installation and maintenance can be challenging for Linux beginners. Because Gentoo builds packages from source, users can control which features are included, but compilation takes time and system resources.

Create the Virtual Machine

• Allocate as much RAM and as many CPU cores as practical. The presenter’s example uses 6 GB of RAM and 3 cores.
• Create a fixed-size 30 GB virtual disk, which he says should be faster than a dynamically allocated disk.
• Set video memory to 128 MB, enable 3D acceleration, and attach the Gentoo minimal installation CD ISO.
• Boot the Gentoo kernel using the default American English keymap, or choose another listed keymap if needed.

Check the Network

Once the live environment has started, test connectivity by pinging a website that accepts ICMP requests.

Partition and Mount the Disk

• Use cfdisk to create a 128 MB boot partition and mark it bootable.
• Use the remaining space for the root partition.
• The presenter prefers not to separate root and home into different partitions.
• He skips swap because his example system has ample RAM, but notes that lower-memory systems may benefit from it.
• Format the partitions and mount the root partition. The transcript’s formatting command is garbled, so it does not clearly identify the filesystem type.

Download and Unpack the Stage 3 Archive

• Use the text-based browser links to navigate to the Gentoo downloads and select the AMD64 Stage 3 archive.
• Choose a hardened Stage 3 and download the .tar.xz archive.
• The presenter also downloads his own installation script and a preconfigured kernel setup. These are optional, and he says to use them at the viewer’s own risk.
• He skips verifying the Stage 3 archive in the virtual-machine demonstration, but advises verifying it when installing on hardware.
• Carefully unpack the archive with the specified options to preserve file attributes and ownership. He warns that mistyping the command with another valid extraction command could cause problems.

Configure Portage and Compilation Settings

Edit /etc/portage/make.conf to set the CPU architecture (MARCH), parallel build setting (MAKEOPTS), and USE flags.

In his example, MAKEOPTS is set to -j3 to match the three assigned CPU threads. He cautions against setting it higher than the system can support. USE flags determine which optional libraries and features are compiled into packages. He recommends excluding features that are not needed, while noting that the appropriate choices depend on the user’s needs.

The presenter also:

• Selects nearby Gentoo mirrors.
• Copies the repository configuration into the new system.
• Copies over DNS configuration.
• Mounts the required filesystems and enters the installation with chroot.
• Loads the Gentoo environment profile and adjusts the prompt to distinguish the chroot from the live system.
• Mounts the boot partition inside the chroot.

Update the Package Configuration

Synchronize Portage’s repository data. The presenter says some synchronization and profile-selection steps may be unnecessary when using a recent Stage 3, which already supplies a profile unless the user wants a different one.

He uses an emerge command to update the @world set and handle updates, dependencies, and new USE-flag changes. Depending on the hardware and build settings, this can take several minutes or longer.

Set System Basics

• Keep the default free-software license setting in his example.
• Use OpenRC rather than systemd.
• Set the timezone, regenerate locales, select the desired locale, and refresh the environment.

Prepare the Kernel

Install the kernel sources and supporting packages. The Handbook’s usual approach is to configure the kernel interactively with make menuconfig, but the presenter skips that lengthy process and uses a pre-made kernel configuration instead.

He copies the configuration into the kernel source tree, renames it to config, runs make oldconfig, and prepares to build and install the kernel modules. The video ends as he is about to start the time-consuming kernel build. Kernel compilation and the remaining installation steps are left for part two.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Mental Outlaw — Narrator and instructor who provides the installation walkthrough and personal recommendations.
• Gentoo AMD64 Handbook / Gentoo Wiki — The written installation guide he follows.
• Gentoo repositories and Stage 3 archive — The software sources used during setup.
• Mental Outlaw’s Gentoo installation script and preconfigured kernel files — Optional materials he demonstrates using; he cautions that the script is unfinished and should be used at the viewer’s own risk.