I would like to practice installing Gentoo from scratch since I like the idea of the distro, but I’m quite new to Linux at all and only had experience with Debian. I suppose my very basic knowledge of terminal isn’t enough to install Gentoo, even with the handbook. So, what would you recommend to learn or practice before I actually try installing Gentoo? Also, any specific tips on installing Gentoo inside a VM?
You’ll be fine, just do it
Can’t really say for VM installation, but I was able to install it to “login to terminal” stage on Dell XPS 15, that was 14-15 years ago and my knowledge about Linux terminal was rather limited to basic commands only (mainly those shared with DOS/PowerShell). Just give it a go, stick to instructions and it should be fine.
The handbook is fantastic and Gentoo is a great learning experience - my tips are:
- setup binrepos (saves a lot of compile time)
- if using as a desktop, install a browser that has a binary package option like opera or vivaldi (or even Edge). Do not use chrom(ium) or firefox - they each take hours and/or massive ram to compile
I suppose my very basic knowledge of terminal isn’t enough to install Gentoo, even with the handbook.
Nope. The gentoo handbook is VERY good. Don’t skip parts on it and you can install a gentoo. You really don’t need very advanced terminal skills to get gentoo up and running. So long as you understand basics like cd/nano/ls/cat then you can pretty easily do the entire handbook.
One thing to realize is that you can always go backwards and fix things if you make a mistake. Nothing is permanent. If you get into a “why isn’t this working” state, just go back and see if you’ve skipped something.
Speaking from personal experience: get a spare laptop or external drive and jump right into it.
Gentoo is where I learned Linux. The handbook is so good and is my highest recommended source of getting into Linux, assuming you take it slow to understand it.
While a VM might be an option, I think you’ll have less problems on a direct system… But maybe I’m wrong, I’ve never tried installing Gentoo on a VM before.
Just know, this system will need care… Keep Gentoo updated frequently, else you’ll have issues with dependencies. If this is your first time digging into Linux, you’ll goof. But don’t fret, for there’s always a fix!
If you find yourself needing something less demanding, my go to has been Mint for that. However these days I’ve actually been re creating my laptop on Gentoo with an external USB C. Turns out even on that it runs games better, so can’t wait to move it to an nvme lol
@Mikelius @pixeldaemon Far as “keeping it updated” you shouldn’t ever run into dep issues if you stick to the stable branch without loads of overlays. I regularly go years 😆 (at least months) between updates without issue.
It’s not so bad. There’s helpful walkthroughs all over the place, like this one
As others have already noted, the handbook is very good. You should be able to manage with limited Linux & terminal skills. (terminal navigation, can install a package with e.g. apt, etc.)
If you’re unsure about your skills, try using the terminal a bit. You can start with switching to the apt cli (command-line program) if you’re using a gui client. Or, you could try to do some basic, everyday tasks with it, like editing text with nano (or vim, if you’re feeling brave).
Just don’t forget to install important packages when installing Gentoo, like sudo (and add youself to sudoers), a DE/WM (KDE Plasma, GNOME, Sway, etc.) and a terminal. These things can be done later, by rebooting to the install media and chrooting, but it can be a bit annoying.
Don’t worry too much about mistakes, as everything is fixable, except things related to bad UEFI implementations.
Like others, I would recommend going with defaults for now. You can always tinker after the install. While a few things are a real pain to change or shouldn’t be changed, like going from no-multilib to multilib, most things can be played with later. Though I haven’t done it with a Gentoo system specifically, going from an unencypted system to encrypting all disks is very much possible.
Just jump straight in and install in a VM. That’s all the practice you need. Can’t break anything, just wipe and try again until you get there.
@pixeldaemon As a 20+ year gentoo user, I often point people to the handbook as a tool for helping them to gain a solid understanding of linux. The way I recommend you go about it is to first read through the entire handbook and (most importantly) go read about each thing you encounter in it that you don’t understand. Once you think you somewhat have a grasp of why each step is in there, start running through an install. Only use prebuilt kernels for now (ever really), there is no need to build one yourself unless you need something specific. Don’t worry about fuck ups, just keep going till you get through it, you’ll learn what you did wrong as you progress. Once you’ve made it as far as a functional desktop, rinse and repeat until you find yourself only referencing the handbook for verification, not reading it, then move on to learning about portage.
It might be a very stupid question, but, does Gentoo handbook assume I’m preparing to install Gentoo from an already working Linux system?
Sort of. The minimal install image provides a (lightweight command-line) Linux environment, and that’s what you would typically expect to boot into to install. If you have another piece of live media that you prefer, you can use it for the install instead (I’ve used Raspbian and its successor distros as hosts to install Gentoo on Pis from time to time), but there can be occasional gotchas that come from things like different handling of the resolv.conf file on other distros.
Just download the file marked “Minimal Installation CD” from here (assuming you’re installing to an x86_64 system) and mount it as a CD according to the VM’s documentation, then boot the VM.
@pixeldaemon You always install gentoo from an “already working” system. Basically, all yer gonna do is partition/format the drive, explode the file system to it, and chroot over to set shit up. You can easily build gentoo on an external drive on one (more powerful) computer, and throw it in the one it’s for when yer done. This is a very common way of installing it on an SBC.
With the caveat that I last played with Gentoo 20 years ago… I am almost certainly a bit out of date.
If I remember correctly it, it explicitly recommended that you use at least the minimal gentoo live disk to get your system into a running state. You’d be working from the live cd for the first couple of sections before booting into a very basic install on your hard disk. From there you would compile the rest of your system.
Even the minimal disk provides all of the tools that you need to bootstrap the system. Sources for everything else are downloaded as they are needed. Come to think of it, I think the full desktop live dvd was fairly new at that time, in it’s first or second release.
Even at that time the Gentoo manual was incredibly well written and is in my opinion the gold standard for how user documentation should be written. I had been toying with linux for about 3 months at that point and was able to get a working desktop system up and running in about a month , mostly just waiting for things to compile on the slow processors we had back then. I would run a few commands and then go off and do something else for a few hours. rinse and repeat.
@StrawberryPigtails @pixeldaemon Round that time, I remember the goto advice was to use whatever #systemrescuecd you had layin around; they were gentoo discs back then, always worked a charm.
Do use the Gentoo-provided minimal install iso as the host for the install, and not random live media, just to reduce the possibility of unexpected problems.
The handbook is actually pretty explicit on what commands you need to run for the base install. Read it through first. Take note of the places where you actually have to decide something (the biggest one is OpenRC vs. systemd, and you want to have that decision made before you start). Go with the default for anything you don’t really care about or that looks a bit complicated or scary. Absolutely do not skip steps (unless they’re marked “Optional”) even if you don’t yet understand what the step is for.
Working inside a VM insulates you from some of the worst gotchas you can run into on real hardware (like bad UEFI implementations), fortunately. Still, don’t try to build a custom kernel straight out the gate—just install the distro kernel for now.
If something goes wrong during the install, it can be best to take a break and come back later.
Once you’ve got the base system running, you’ll have another decision to make about X vs wayland and the various DE/WM/compositor options.
Gentoo, along with arch and their derivatives are more advanced distros, that will require you to actually learn stuff to be able to use them.
That said, if you are motivated and have the time there is no reason to not try, and the arch wiki and installation manual are in my experience very good at explaining everything you need to know on the system side.
I know that the gentoo handbook is also very good, and the main difference between gentoo and arch is that there is the additional uncommon step to build everything from source, kernel included.
You could go with gentoo directly, but since you seem searching for a progression I do recommend to try arch first before going to the gentoo endgame.
The process of installing gentoo and arch is nearly identical. Really the main difference between the two is that arch (usually) offers binaries to install while gentoo prefers that you compile things (though it does actually allow you to use binaries as well).
