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?
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
