Handbook:Parts/Installation/Media

Gentoo Linux can be installed in many ways. This chapter explains how to install Gentoo using the minimal Installation CD.

Hardware requirements
Before we start, we first list what hardware requirements are need to successfully install Gentoo on a box.

Minimal installation CD
The Gentoo minimal installation CD is a bootable CD which contains a self-sustained Gentoo environment. It allows the user to boot Linux from the CD. During the boot process the hardware is detected and the appropriate drivers are loaded. The CD is maintained by Gentoo developers and allows anyone to install Gentoo if an active Internet connection is available.

The Minimal Installation CD is called install--minimal- .iso and takes up around MB of diskspace.

The occasional Gentoo LiveDVD
Occasionally, a special DVD is crafted by the Gentoo Ten project which can be used to install Gentoo with too. The instructions further down this chapter target the Minimal Installation CD so might be a bit different. However, the LiveDVD (or any other bootable Linux environment) supports getting a root prompt by just invoking  or   on a terminal.

What are stages then?
A stage3 tarball is an archive containing a minimal Gentoo environment, suitable to continue the Gentoo installation using the instructions in this manual. Previously, the Gentoo Handbook described the installation using one of three stage tarballs. While Gentoo still offers stage1 and stage2 tarballs, the official installation method uses the stage3 tarball. If you are interested in performing a Gentoo installation using a stage1 or stage2 tarball, please read the Gentoo FAQ on How do I Install Gentoo Using a Stage1 or Stage2 Tarball?

Stage3 tarballs can be downloaded from on any of the official Gentoo mirrors and are not provided on the LiveDVD.

Downloading and burning the installation CD
Let's first start by downloading and burning the chosen Installation CD. We previously discussed the Installation CD, but where can it be found?

Any of the installation CDs can be downloaded from one of our mirrors. The Installation CD is located in the directory.

Inside that directory the ISO file can be found. This is a full CD image which can be written on a CD-R.

To be able to verify if the downloaded file is corrupted or not, users can check its SHA-2 checksum and compare it with the SHA-2 checksum Gentoo provides (such as ). The SHA-2 checksum can be checked with the  tool under Linux/Unix or the Checksums calculator for Windows.

Another way to check the validity of the downloaded file is to use GnuPG to verify the cryptographic signature that Gentoo provides (the file ending with ). First download the signature file.

Next, obtain the public keys whose key ids can be found on the release engineering project site. Make sure that the key ids in the next example are substituted with those found on the release engineering site:

Next verify the signature:

To burn the downloaded ISO(s), raw burning needs to be selected. How to do this is highly program-dependent. We will discuss cdrecord and K3B here; more information can be found in our Gentoo FAQ.


 * With cdrecord, one simply types  (replace  with the CD-RW drives device path).
 * With K3B, select Tools > Burn CD Image. Then you can locate your ISO file within the 'Image to Burn' area. Finally click Start.