Home » Misc » Install Gentoo Linux from a USB Disk …
— Last modified: xiaoke das.xiaoke@hotmail.com 2016/01/04 10:33
For those who wish to install Gentoo, I really recommend Arch. Arch has much better documentation, which in turn makes its installation less painful.
Download the livecd file, then execute
# dd if=/path/to/livecd.iso of=/dev/sdb
on an existing Linux machine (you must have the root privileges).
fdisk
can be helpful, if you want to list the existing partitions, or manipulate them, but be careful. According to the documentation, it seems that partitions for boot
, /
, swap
are essential, but you can also create a partition for home
./
, sda13 for boot
, sda12 for home
, sda6 for swap
# mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda13 # mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda12 # mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda11 # mount /dev/sda11 /mnt # mkdir /mnt/boot # mkdir /mnt/home # mount /dev/sda13 /mnt/boot # mount /dev/sda12 /mnt/home # swapon /dev/sda6 # dhcpcd enp0s25 # ping -c 3 8.8.8.8 # pacstrap /mnt base # genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab # arch-chroot /mnt # vi /etc/hostname # ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime # vi /etc/locale.gen (then uncomment en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8) # locale-gen # vi /etc/locale.conf (create this file and put the following content) LANG="en_GB.UTF-8" LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
(I am not quite sure whether the following file vconsole.conf is needed or not, it's been reported that this file caused 'backspace' problems on virtualbox virtual machines and thus should not be created.)
# vi /etc/vconsole.conf (create this file and put the following content) KEYMAP=us FONT=Lat2-Terminus16 FONT_MAP=8859-2
# mkinitcpio -p linux # passwd # exit (exit from the chrooted environment)
Then, install and configure a bootloader, I didn't do that by simply boot into Ubuntu, which is another existing Linux dist and execute
update-grub
, then the grub for ubuntu can automatically find Arch.
# umount /mnt/{boot,home,}
If a brand-new bootloader has to be installed, I haven't been able to work out grub, but syslinux can be used instead. Simply run
# pacman -S syslinux gptfdisk #syslinux-install_update -i -a -m
It may also be useful to check the configuration file generated at /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
and see whether the boot entry has the intended disk partition.
Then reboot, and login with root.
# useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash xy248 # passwd xy248 # dhcpcd enp0s25 # pacman -S alsa-utils # pacman -S xf86-video-nv
# pacman -S kdebase-workspace # pacman -S archlinux-themes-kdm
the above kde packages have been deprecated, use the following commands instead
# pacman -S plasma-meta
# systemctl enable dhcpcd.service # pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant # pacman -S xorg-server xorg-server-utils xorg-xinit # pacman -S xf86-video-vesa # pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics # pacman -S nvidia # nvidia-xconfig # pacman -S vim # systemctl enable kdm $ cp /etc/skel/.xinitrc ~/.xinitrc $ vim ~/.xinitrc (add exec startkde) $ startx
Now I have a basic Arch Linux running KDE, but I know more problems will follow.
pacman -S sudo
then add the following to /etc/sudoers
xy248 ALL=(ALL) ALL
Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, add under section Device:
Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
sudo pacman -S kdemultimedia-kmix
I haven't worked out how the graphical interface can be used. The following gives the command line. Command iw
only works for wireless network with WEP standard or no security support. If the target network has WPA security standard, you'll have to switch to something else, e.g. wpa_applicant
. The following gives configurations for both
First, turn on the wifi
# ip link set dev wlp3s0 up
for iw
, use the following to connect
# iw dev wlp3s0 scan | less # iw dev wlp3s0 connect your_essid key 0:your_key
for wpa_applicant
, use the following
sudo wpa_supplicant -i wlp3s0 -c wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant.conf is generated by
wpa_passphrase essid password > wap_supplicant.conf
then, we need to bound wlp3s0
with a dhcp client.
sudo dhcpcd wlan0