this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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@pixeldaemon As a 20+ year gentoo user, I often point people to the handbook as a tool for helping them to gain a solid understanding of linux. The way I recommend you go about it is to first read through the entire handbook and (most importantly) go read about each thing you encounter in it that you don't understand. Once you think you somewhat have a grasp of why each step is in there, start running through an install. Only use prebuilt kernels for now (ever really), there is no need to build one yourself unless you need something specific. Don't worry about fuck ups, just keep going till you get through it, you'll learn what you did wrong as you progress. Once you've made it as far as a functional desktop, rinse and repeat until you find yourself only referencing the handbook for verification, not reading it, then move on to learning about portage.
It might be a very stupid question, but, does Gentoo handbook assume I'm preparing to install Gentoo from an already working Linux system?
Sort of. The minimal install image provides a (lightweight command-line) Linux environment, and that's what you would typically expect to boot into to install. If you have another piece of live media that you prefer, you can use it for the install instead (I've used Raspbian and its successor distros as hosts to install Gentoo on Pis from time to time), but there can be occasional gotchas that come from things like different handling of the resolv.conf file on other distros.
Just download the file marked "Minimal Installation CD" from here (assuming you're installing to an x86_64 system) and mount it as a CD according to the VM's documentation, then boot the VM.
With the caveat that I last played with Gentoo 20 years ago.... I am almost certainly a bit out of date.
If I remember correctly it, it explicitly recommended that you use at least the minimal gentoo live disk to get your system into a running state. You'd be working from the live cd for the first couple of sections before booting into a very basic install on your hard disk. From there you would compile the rest of your system.
Even the minimal disk provides all of the tools that you need to bootstrap the system. Sources for everything else are downloaded as they are needed. Come to think of it, I think the full desktop live dvd was fairly new at that time, in it's first or second release.
Even at that time the Gentoo manual was incredibly well written and is in my opinion the gold standard for how user documentation should be written. I had been toying with linux for about 3 months at that point and was able to get a working desktop system up and running in about a month , mostly just waiting for things to compile on the slow processors we had back then. I would run a few commands and then go off and do something else for a few hours. rinse and repeat.
@StrawberryPigtails @pixeldaemon Round that time, I remember the goto advice was to use whatever #systemrescuecd you had layin around; they were gentoo discs back then, always worked a charm.
@pixeldaemon You always install gentoo from an "already working" system. Basically, all yer gonna do is partition/format the drive, explode the file system to it, and chroot over to set shit up. You can easily build gentoo on an external drive on one (more powerful) computer, and throw it in the one it's for when yer done. This is a very common way of installing it on an SBC.