Before you begin

Installing Gentoo - Before you begin

If you are installing Gentoo on a computer with a previous operating system such as Windows or Mac, it would be advisable to power down your system and disconnect the power cables from any hard drives that contain precious data but aren't needed for the installation. This is just common sense, especially if this is your first time installing Gentoo. Unless you have used some other utility to partition your drive and want a dual boot configuration, it's certain that all data on the drive you'll be using for the install will be lost. Before you get started, back up, back up, and back up. If you're installing a virtual version of Gentoo, you needn't worry about this.

You'll also need a copy of the latest Gentoo minimal installation CD for your architecture. To download the latest .iso of the Gentoo minimal installation CD, visit the Gentoo website.

If you have a 64-bit system, choose the amd64 platform. An example file would be install-amd64-minimal-20101111.iso . If you have a 32 bit system, choose the x86 platform. An example file would be install-x86-minimal-20101109.iso . If you don't know which architecture you have, choose the x86 platform.

If you are installing Gentoo as a virtual machine, you needn't do anything with your iso file; you can mount the image using your virtualization software to perform the install. If you are installing Gentoo onto a physical machine, you will need to burn the image to a cd-rom using the burning software of your choice. You can also make a Gentoo uber USB but I have not done this yet so it is not covered in this wiki.

Insert your cd-rom and/or set your virtual cd-rom to read the iso image. Boot your system. You should be prompted to press a key to begin the installation; if not, you'll need to check that your cd-rom drive is set at a higher priority than your hard drive in the boot order set in your system BIOS. You can press enter or wait when prompted as the installation media loads its drivers and establishes a working Linux environment. Once your system has completed the boot process, you should be greeted by a command prompt. Your first task will be to Configure Networking.