Handbook Talk:AMD64/Full/Installation

5.4 Viewing Documentation During Install
The documentation recommends creating a new user account and logging in on a separate virtual tty to load links with the install docs, then switching back and forth between a command tty and the docs tty. This will work but it's clumsy, slow, and aggravating. A better solution is to use "screen" which is already included on the minimal install CD. The docs can be viewed side-by-side with one or more command shells on the same terminal with the following commands:


 * screen links Gentoo.org
 * ^A ^C
 * ^A | (for vertical split) or ^A S (for horizontal split)

Each "screen" can be split further into more windows. I would suggest including these instructions in the install docs in addition to or instead of the virtual terminal switching method.

Choosing the right profile
While not a recommendation, this section suggests using "no-multilib" for a pure 64-bit environment. I think this should be followed by the disclaimer on the AMD64 FAQ:

Optional: Selecting mirrors
If you use >=sys-apps/portage-2.2.16, you not have to use As, the SYNC variable in make.conf is deprecated and no longer used by portage. You will should use If you want to be updated from other mirror, you can run select mirror and paste received URI here /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf in variable "sync-uri" example: sync-uri = rsync://rsync.ru.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage

More info https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Portage/Sync P.S. Sorry my bad english.

Unpacking the stage tarball
Is "--xattrs" required on some versions of tar to keep the extended attributes when extracting the archive or is this a mistake and as the manpage says, is only used to "save the user/root xattrs to the archive" (while when extracting, one would have to specify "--no-xattrs" to bypass them).

Setting the date and time
Is there a reason Handbook doesn't suggest "ntpdate pool.ntp.org" instead of typing date manually?

Typo "there are e a"
There's an apparent typo on a whole series of these wiki pages. I created and validated wiki account for myself, but alas, it doesn't (yet) give me the option to edit the pages - so apparently I can't correct it.

Anyway, the error: "there are e a couple" should apparently be: "there are a couple" on at least these pages:

(Above posted by Michael Paoli, fixed for wikification)


 * Thanks, corrected. --SwifT (talk) 14:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Systemd needed for Banshee Too!

About the optional systemd and Gnome, could you mention that systemd is also required for programs like Banshee that highly depend on Gnome architecture.

404 link on Introduction
The link to the Gentoo AMD64 project site (https://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/), on the Hardware Requirements section of the Introduction, leads to a 404 error.

Minor typo & systemd creep
Correct "on a amd64" to "on an amd64" if possible.

I'm here to do a clean openRC installation. Let's keep systemd in check.

The "--make-rslave" operation creeps in without mention of it being optional, if it is, and without yet mention that it is because of systemd.

If these operations are unnecessary without systemd, then please move the "--make-rslave" operations into, and/or under, the note. For example:

Note The --make-rslave operations are needed for systemd support later in the installation. root #mount --make-rslave /mnt/gentoo/sys root #mount --make-rslave /mnt/gentoo/dev

Re: Banshee
Banshee is software that is loaded with commercial interests, namely Amazon.com. If it has dependency issues then those should be dealt with at the Banshee development site, not here.

Configuring the network
The Handbook heavily relies on the assumption that the network interface name is eth0, which is highly unlikely with the new udev naming rules. Recommending the use of from a Gentoo-based installation medium or if coming from a different installation medium would allow users still unfamiliar with Gentoo to avoid errors during setup.

Agreed...I solved this by simply running

Likely works for 95% of all users with a single network card that doesn't change slots

Installing the sources
This command execution recommends to control its status in another terminal by doing: But we have previously chrooted into /mnt/gentoo/. So I suggest to specify that if we log into another terminal we should tail the file inside the mounted folder by doing:

Kernel config for USB support
This section is out of date:

I believe the relevant options have been moved to:

Kernel config for efi stub
Please edit configuration of kernel for efi support, else kernel not load a root file system.

Link to "other arches" on download page
In the "Download the media" section which discusses the "minimal installation CDs", the link to "the [//www.gentoo.org/downloads/#other-arches downloads page] (recommended)" is to the "Advanced Choices and other Architectures" section of that page. Shouldn't it be to the top of the page (no section anchor) where links to download the "normal" amd64 Minimal Installation CD, LiveDVD, and Stage 3 files are to be found? - dcljr (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Remove Parted
Remove Parted from handbook! fdisk have support GPT layout, and part of coreutils (default)

EFI partition mount
I see the Handbook mentions that Grub2 can't be used, and efibootmgr should be used instead. However, using grub2 is a suitable option.

The EFI partition should be mounted to /boot/efi:


 * 1) mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot/efi
 * 2) mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot/efi

ILMostro (talk)


 * Hi, I saw your message in IRC. We are still very much active in monitoring and updating the wiki, although we're not always able to immediately respond on IRC. I agree, GRUB2 is a suitable option for EFI on Gentoo. I use it myself. With that being said we have to be careful with how much we try to support in the various handbooks. The purpose of it is to help users get Gentoo installed; not to walk them through all the configuration options (Gentoo is far too flexible for that!). :)


 * I don't remember the Handbook ever saying GRUB2 can't be used for EFI on systems, but I will take a look and fix anything that doesn't seem right. Kind regards, --Maffblaster (talk) 02:05, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Configuring GRUB2
When GRUB2 is installed, it mounts the boot partition in read-only mode with the following notification:

Because of this, the following command will fail:

As a workaround, just unmount the boot partition before running the command with:

Afterwards, I noticed my boot partition was empty and I had to reinstall my kernel. I'm not sure if I messed something up, or if this is a bug or what.

--Astronome (talk) 19:16, 20 July 2016 (UTC)