Stage tarball

A Stage tarball is an archive of the basic files used for the installation of Gentoo Linux. Stage tarballs can be generated with catalyst using the appropriate specs files.

Stage 1
Stage 1 tarballs are generated from a file. Each system profile may have a slightly different file:



Stage 2
Stage 2 tarballs contain the same packages as a stage 1 tarball with one caveat: stage 2 tarballs are compiled from a stage 1 tarball. This is to ensure the stage 1 tarball contains the tool chain necessary to reproduce itself.

Stage 3
Stage 3 tarballs are compiled from stage 2 tarballs, but contain a system set. Portage includes a quick reference to this set of base packages by using the set operator.

Not including sub-profiles, the base file used for the system set of all profiles can be found at:

Stage 3 tarballs offered in architecture specific versions are available the downloads page; they are hosted on distfiles.gentoo.org (navigate to the directory).

Downloading and decompressing a stage 3 tarball as described in Gentoo Handbook will install an almost-complete and almost-functional system (the most important parts still missing are a kernel and a bootloader).

Stage 4
Official stage 4 tarballs became available in January 2016 for the architecture on distfiles.gentoo.org. These tarballs contain a kernel and bootloader and therefore provide a bootable system. No automatic network detection is attempted, however, so they are not intended to replace the usual Handbook-based installation method starting from a minimal installation CD or a Gentoo LiveDVD. (That being said, the LiveDVD can be used to get a full, working Gentoo system without first installing Gentoo. Users with access to the appropriate commands can also create a LiveUSB.)

A cloud stage 4 has been created to aid in the process of virtual machine provisioning. These stage 4 files can be used with (available via ). See the Gentoo README upstream and official diskimage-builder documentation for more information.

External resources

 * http://www.funtoo.org/Stage_Tarball - Stage tarball explained on the Funtoo Linux wiki.