A guide for using oddlama's menu-based gentoo-install
You can download the ISO from https://archlinux.org/download/
(Make sure you boot from UEFI, otherwise the menu seems to assume uefi is not supported)
Note this will land you in a fully-functional linux terminal. You can look around, install packages, or even mount additional thumb drives if you want to save your config files.
If you want to be able to scroll through the STDOUT that is generated, start screen before continuing.
screen
(Press ENTER after you get the wall of text)
Run this command, substituting your actual network name:
iwctl station wlan0 connect 'Name of your Network'
# (It will ask for your network password)
Make sure the network works, since we will need it for subsequent steps.
curl example.com
# (Make sure you get some html back)
6. Clone the oddlama/gentoo-install repo
pacman is the package manager available to us from the archlinux live USB, so we'll use that
to install git.
# Install git (note the `-y` flag also updates pacman databases)
pacman -Sy git
# (It will ask for confirmation)
# Clone the oddlama/gentoo git repo
git clone https://github.com/oddlama/gentoo-install
If you would rather enter all values yourself, skip to Step 8 (Menu Config).
Otherwise you can run these commands to download the config file provided
with this repo. You will still need to at least set Partitioning scheme -> Device
since yours will be different from mine.
# Clone this repo, which contains gentoo.conf
git clone https://github.com/jackdesert/gentoo-install-for-newbs
# copy `gentoo.conf` into the gentoo-install directory
cp gentoo-install-for-newbs/gentoo.conf gentoo-install
# Change directory
cd gentoo-install
./configure
# (It will ask to install missing programs...Yes!)
# (It will also ask for confirmation...Yes!)
# (After that the menu will open)
If you downloaded the config file from this repo, you still need to at least change
the value of Partitioning scheme -> Device to reference the drive you want to install to.
If you are starting from no config, you will need/want to make several changes. Here is what I did, and what I recommend:
UNCHECK:
"Use Swap" # Because we have plenty of RAM
"LUKS Encryption" # Because simplicity
"Enable Bleeding Edge" # For reliability
"Enable sshd" # Because we don't need other people logging in here
CHANGE:
"Partitioning scheme -> Device"
(Choose the device that you want to install on. )
(If there are several nested items for a single drive, choose the topmost one)
CHANGE:
"Timezone" to where you live
CHANGE:
"Interface Name" to `en* wlan*`
(This makes it so both ethernet and WiFi can both use DHCP)
(You can edit /etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network in your newly installed system to change this later)
CHANGE:
"Additional Packages" to `app-editors/neovim net-wireless/iwd`
(This installs neovim and `iwctl` so you can at least edit files and connect to WiFi on your new system)
CHANGE:
"Stage 3 variant & Init System" to `desktop-systemd`
(This makes it easier to build a desktop system out of it later)
CHANGE:
"Gentoo Mirror" to one that is close to you.
Save to the default filename (gentoo.conf)
./install
# (It will ask you if you want to install missing programs. Yes!)
# (It will ask for confirmation for the amount of downloads for installing missing programs. Yes!)
Next it will ask "Do you really want to apply this disk configuration" Note it will display in grey above which partitions it intends to create.
The speed of downloading the stage3 tarball varies depending on your chosen mirror and geography. Once that step is passed, expect about an hour for the remaining compilation and setup.
Finally, it will ask if you want to set a password for root...Yes!
Installation complete!
Remove the archlinux thumb drive.
Reboot your computer.
Once it prints some stuff to the screen and then stops, press ENTER to see the prompt for your username/password.
Enter root for the user and the password you chose above.
This assumes that you installed iwd as one of the "additional packages"
# Enable and start iwd so you can use iwctl
systemctl enable --now iwd
# Connect to wifi (same as you did from the archlinux Live USB)
iwctl station wlan0 connect 'Name of your Network'
# (It will ask for your network password)
# Verify network
curl example.com
# (Expect some html in response)
If you need to chroot into your installed system to make repairs, repeat steps 1, 2, and 6 above
- Create an archlinux bootable usb
- Boot into the archlinux bootable usb using UEFI
- Clone the oddlama/gentoo-install repo
Mount your drive where it is installed. For me this was:
mkdir -p /tmp/gentoo-install/root
mount -t ext4 /dev/sda2 /tmp/gentoo-install/root
Now you can chroot with this command:
./install --chroot /tmp/gentoo-install/root
Help: "chroot into an existing system. the root filesystem must already be mounted under DIR. All required special filesystems will be mounted inside, and unmounted when the chroot exits"
On macbookpro this was required to make system bootable.
Follow steps above for chroot.
Once inside chroot, run the following. Make sure you replace /dev/nvme0n1p1 with a different device, if appropriate. (My external SSD used /dev/sda1):
efibootmgr --create --part 1 --label "Gentoo_nvme" --disk /dev/nvme0n1p1 --loader '\EFI\gentoo\bootx64.efi' -u 'init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=/dev/nvme0n1p2 rootfstype=ext4 raid=noautodetect'