Gentoo: Why don't you need the Gentoo ISO to install it?

Well, we are getting closer, I prefer to write these small posts quickly so that they do not bother me for not writing the guide at this moment: p, but you must understand that there is so much to explain in Gentoo that leaving the script would not do me much good if later they can't control all that power.

ISO images:

We all know ISO images (well all of us who have faced a Linux installation at least). Those small (or no longer as small as the case of Ubuntu) tablets that store the entire base system and replicate it on another machine.

The Gentoo ISO:

Gentoo's ISO is quite low (270 Mb in console mode, 2 Gb in Live mode). But if you stop to check the official download page, the first thing you will notice is that both minimal and live are updated with little regularity. At least compared to him Stage3 (which we will talk about later).

Gentoo ISO

Necessary?

To be 100% honest with you, no, you don't need to download the Gentoo ISO to install it. What's more, those who have already tried it will say, many times the ISO comes with quite a few limitations (for example the support for UEFI, the minimal ISO does not have UEFI support). Also, it's just a console (someone who does 95% of their activities per console tells you) and there are better (at least easier) ways to do a full Gentoo installation.

As yo I make:

Well this is my secret partitions… partitions? they are probably wondering right now. Yes, partitions. Since my days in Arch I have always been fond of MBR, with this label I made my first Arch installation and since I have never needed a huge number of partitions or I have done a dual boot with Windows, I have not had the need to generate my system on UEFI.

What I have right now on my computer is a set of 5 partitions, as I am lazy to write all of them, here I am sending you a picture of my disk.

Own. Christopher Diaz Riveros

(By the way, I have always liked to show what I use, I prefer not only to talk about theory, but to show what works for me, this may not suit everyone but if I can help with those particular cases, let me know )

As you can see, I have 6 partitions on my hard drive, using MBR I can have 3 primaries, and thanks to the extended one I can add a bit of SWAP to my machine. In addition to having separated my / home directory so that in an emergency, my information is not lost along with the system. This is quite useful when your computer suddenly stops working, you can simply install from scratch and mount your home at the end, a piece of cake 🙂

As you can see, like any good security fanatic, I also have my Kali Linux installed, and an always useful Arch linux. Now I tell you how I use these.

Arch as a means of rescue:

As you can infer from the title, my Arch is the emergency rescue usb, whenever something happens with Gentoo that I can't repair from Gentoo itself, I go into Arch, mount the Gentoo hard drive and start fixing things. Also, I really like a game called Bombsquad which is available in AUR 😉 whenever I can I play it with my family or my girlfriend and my friends. By the way, just to be clear, the Arch also has GNOME if you are wondering if I have left it on console 😛

Since Gentoo doesn't need any of its own installation media, you can choose to install it from anywhere, Arch, Ubuntu, CentOs, etc etc ... great isn't it? 🙂

The magic is on stage3

El Stage3 it is a compress that contains the entire Linux tree necessary to install a system. It is thanks to this tablet that we can install directly from another operating system. The only condition to use it properly is that the mount point is empty when installing and remember that this will be our root for the next Gentoo system we are going to build. To give you a little idea of ​​what my machine consumes on your system, here is the amount of disk used:

Own. Christopher Diaz Riveros

As you can see, with 50 Gb it is more than enough, it is actually somewhat exaggerated I would say, and of these 50 I use 8 Gb, including heavy programs like Virtualbox, Google-chrome (obviously it had to be available in the distribution that helped born to Chromebooks 😉) and well, my GNOME suite and some other program, but let's not deviate from the topic ...

Once the Stage3, all that is necessary is to start doing the retouching, but we will leave this for the official guide 😛

In summary:

Well, I already told you a little more about how Gentoo is installed, its versatility allows it to be installed from different distros (something that I think very few can say) and at the same time it allows to generate a reduced work space. Right now I'm thinking of writing one last post before starting the guide. At the good pace that I have these days, I hope the guide will be available very soon 🙂 I'm just making sure there are no loose ends before I start. Cheers,

PS: To see other posts, better search for more of the author because otherwise they will fill me with links 😛


14 comments, leave yours

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  1.   Edwar checkers said

    You are very bad influence, I am faithful (Well, I think not so much anymore) to Ubuntu, and because of you, I am about to be unfaithful with Gentoo

    1.    ChrisADR said

      hahaha well the idea is to try new things 🙂 I think that many fear Gentoo because they think it is «difficult», I have come to break those fears 😉

    2.    Man Diamond Sock said

      The same thing happens to me, 10 years being faithful to Ubuntu, and now Gentoo makes me 1313.

  2.   fernan said

    Hello:
    Doesn't gentoo need a lot of space for builds?
    That I know from another distro besides gentoo you can install debian, funtoo and archlinux.
    Greetings.

    1.    ChrisADR said

      Thank you very much for sharing 🙂 now at least I know. I had no idea that you could do the same with debian and arch, obviously funtoo yes because it is a brother of Gentoo 🙂 Greetings and thanks for sharing

      1.    fernan said

        Hello:
        In debian you have debotstrap, which will surely be an ebuild in gentoo, you download the debian base system in a folder, then you must do the chroot, install the kernel and everything else. Archlinux must also have the bootstrap
        Greetings.

  3.   Victor said

    This is creating more excitement than the last season of Game of Thrones… .. Thank you and cheer up !!!

    1.    ChrisADR said

      hahahaha I wrote that yesterday ... and if I told you that I'm through step 18 of the guide ... oops, I missed it 😛 greetings,

  4.   Mart said

    Gentoo has a lot to talk about. I hope they are not the only post about this wonderful distro. There are topics that I would like to know more about, such as the subject of masked packages, the different USE flags, among others.
    Personally, I came to Linux out of curiosity, that curiosity that distinguishes us Linuxeros. But those who use Gentoo are even more curious.
    Cheers!…

    1.    ChrisADR said

      Well, a little of that and more I am already touching it in the installation guide 😉 now, if after that you still have doubts, then if there is a need for another post, another post will be 🙂 Greetings

  5.   jour said

    Your articles are very good, let's see if I can install and run Gentoo (I've tried about four times), and something that escapes me always fails.
    Cheer up, greetings and thank you

    1.    ChrisADR said

      Thanks to you for commenting, and the guide is coming out soon so that everyone starts playing with Gentoo 🙂 Greetings

  6.   Tone said

    Recently a new pc has fallen into my hands with which I want to learn, and your articles have decided me to start playing with this distro, Gentoo vooooy pallaaaa!

    1.    ChrisADR said

      Great! So all my effort is paying off 😛 good luck with your pc and hopefully the guide I have written can help you enter the world of Gentoo more easily. Greetings 😉