Gentoo minimal install usb

Install grub to corresponding place with your platform information. The first warning is to be expected as we are not installing the boot loader onto the hard disk in the computer.

The second warning will only cause a problem on machines that are old; if it is a problem try cutting down the kernel by removing modules. Next install syslinux onto the USB stick. Although it is possible to use the system just made as a standard Gentoo system, it might be worthwhile to compile binary packages on a host and then installing them on the USB stick. This page contains changes which are not marked for translation. Other languages:. See the LiveUSB article for instructions on creating a simple bootable drive, that can for example be used for Gentoo installation.

Note The guide assumes that the current platform is a Gentoo Linux one. The majority of steps however can be performed from any distribution, just translate the Gentoo-specific way of doing things such as installing software to the other distribution's practices. Warning Note that the --removable option is very important. Wait to see if you receive bytes back. If you do not receive any bytes back, make sure that your network router or switch is properly connected to the internet.

Once you are able to connect to the internet, you can next move on to acquiring more installation materials. During this step, you will partition and format a hard drive in preparation to house your Gentoo system.

Make sure that you do not use a hard drive with information that you want to keep. This step will overwrite all data on the hard drive that you use! Make sure that only the correct hard drive has been connected to your computer, and all other data storage devices have been disconnected. Make sure the drive that you want to use is at least 24Gb in size. This will show a long list of devices, most of which you can ignore. Typically, your hard drives will appear as devices that start with "sd", although older systems may use other letters, such as "hda".

Each distinct letter following "sd" is associated with a different physical drive, and each number following this is a different partition. We now want to partition the disk to prepare for the Gentoo system. We are going to use a MBR Master Boot Record and create 3 basic partitions, the boot partition, a swap partition, and a root partition. There are many different set-ups for your drive, that you may want to choose if you are experienced with Linux.

We will not cover these set-ups in this Instructable. To partition the disk, we are going to use a program called fdisk. This program will give you a prompt. Repeat this until all partitions are deleted. When entering "p" gives an empty list, the disk is clear of all partitions. Now we want to create the first of our three partitions, the boot partition. This partition is where our boot loader, which the BIOS uses to load the operating system, will reside.

Create the partition by entering "n", for a new partition. Then "p" for a primary partition. We will not be using extended partitions. Then enter "1". When asked for the first sector, hit enter to choose the default.

What we have just done is created a new partition, numbered 1, that is located at the first open sector on the disk and is of length Mb. Type "a", then enter "1". This will set the "bootable" flag for this partition, which tells the machine which partition to boot. Now we will make the swap partition. The swap partition is used by the Operating System to store temporary files it needs to run properly.

It will also be used when the computer hibernates, or crashes. There is some debate about how large the swap partition should be, but a good rule of thumb is 2x the amount of RAM your system uses.

Create another partition by entering "n", then enter "2". Enter "t", then "3". This will set the type of the partition to Linux Swap. Finally, we will create the root partition.

This is where the Gentoo system and all of your data will be stored. Create this partition by entering "n", then "3", then hit enter twice. This will select the default first and last sector, which will, by default, use the remainder of the space on the disk.

Enter "p" at the prompt once more, to print out the list of partitions. This should print out a list with three partitions. Double check the sizes, types, and which partition has the bootable flag. When you are sure that everything is good, enter "w" to write these changes to the disk and to exit the fdisk program.

Now we need to format the partitions. Currently, the disk has empty partitions that the system cannot use. By formatting them, we set each partition up so that the Gentoo system will be able to work with them. The boot partition will be formatted with the EXT2 file system.

The swap partition will be formatted with a swap file system. The root partition will be formatted with the EXT4 file system. These are typical choices, but there are more options that you can research.

Run the following commands:. Now that the file systems are set-up on the partitons, we want to mount the partitions and begin installing Gentoo onto the disk. To mount them, run:. This is where our boot partition will go, so we mount it there. We are now ready to begin installing Gentoo! The remainder of this document explains how to setup a vfat partition that is writable using the syslinux bootloader instead of isolinux.

An example partitioning scheme can be seen below:. The files need to be reordered since syslinux will be used as the bootloader instead of isolinux :. Adjust the syslinux configuration file using sed as shown below.

The slowusb parameter will introduce some extra delays before attempting to mount the filesystem. This is needed to allow the USB drive to settle upon detection.

Finally install the syslinux bootloader on the USB drive:. Rufus is a free and open source project created to write images to USB drives, with a variety of operating systems.

It tends to be faster than the Universal USB installer see in the next section. Rufus can be downloaded from the project's homepage. Rufus is easy to use and should be mostly self explanatory. For more information, see Rufus' FAQ page. It supports most Linux distributions, and has a simple, helpful wizard for selecting the Linux distribution. Universal USB installer can be downloaded from its homepage. If all goes well,a standard syslinux prompt should appear on the screen.

When attempting to boot from a USB device, be sure to select or enable USB drives as bootable devices in the system's firmware interface.