Easy Gentoo - Gentoo Installation Script

shdcn · Last edited by shdcn on Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:42 am; edited 3 times in total

Hi everyone,
I was trying to find an easier Gentoo install method for years. I ran into outdated scripts, read tons of pages, had too many headaches and I started writing a script for myself when i lost hope

Finally I have a script that gets me what I need. This bash script is basically a group of commands listed in Gentoo Handbook but does more than just executing them all. It does every little configuration change that is necessary.
I was targeting Turkish Gentoo users at first so it had all echos etc in Turkish. But I translated (at least I tried ^^) it to English because I decided to stop improving it. I don't have enough time to test, fix, update it anymore. Someone else may do that from now on. That's why I'm writing this post.

So what does that script do?
Easy Gentoo uses a profile to get information it needs from you and installs Genoo based on that profile. Installation is automated, you won't need to interfere. Script does its job and in the end it executes a shutdown. It is even easier than it sounds.
I tried to make every little detail as good as possible and there are lots of things that Easy Gentoo does. The best way to inspect them all is to give it a try i guess.
For example: I did 3-4 installs today on a virtual machine using Easy Gentoo; one of them was a 64bit install with a ready to use Xfce desktop using vesa at 1920x1080, another one was a 32bit basic install which doesn't have X.

Note: Script uses stable packages, it doesn't/can't do an unstable install.

It is important for you to read this before using Easy Gentoo: https://raw.github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/master/README.md

These are some of the main steps (to give you an idea about installation).
For more information please take a look at https://raw.github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/master/installation_steps.txt

*** Steps for basic install ***
1- Check if necessary tools/commands are available to continue (like cut, grep, wc, sed, awk, mkfs.foo)
2- Format partitions
3- Mount partitions
4- Check mirrors (not a mirrorselect)
5- Download and extract latest stage3 tarball and portage snapshot
6- Continue inside chroot
7- Create a temporary make.conf
8- Emerge portage and some tools
9- Create locale.gen
10- Update make.conf and create package.use
11- Do a controlled "emerge -e system"
12- Kernel compilation (genkernel) with lots of needed settings/drivers
13- Emerge grub and create grub.conf
*** Steps for normal install ***
--- Emerge xorg-server and create xorg.conf
--- Emerge and configure Xfce
--- Emerge and configure Gdm Login Manager
--- Configure evdev
--- Emerge NetworkManager
--- Emerge and configure Alsa
14- Create/update configuration files (localtime, keymaps, hostname, etc)
15- Change locale based on keymap
16- Change root password and create user
17- Update /etc/sudoers and .bashrc
18- Unmerge unnecessary packages and do "emerge -uDN world"
19- Purge unnecessary man pages etc. (localepurge)
20- Create a small report about whole process.
21- Delete temporary files that were created by script
22- Shutdown computer

Script is located at https://github.com/shdcn/easygentoo repository.

Direct download link: https://raw.github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/master/easygentoo
Profile description: https://github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/blob/master/profile

Example profiles:
https://github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/blob/master/profile.example.1
https://github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/blob/master/profile.example.2
https://github.com/shdcn/easygentoo/blob/master/profile.example.3

Screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/OgWLN#0
http://imgur.com/a/ujDdT#0

Edit (15.02.2013):
I have added some tested changes to script. Pulseaudio is disabled, Alsa replaced it. It compiles 36 less packages than before (previous tests had a total of 440 packages included in a normal install, now it is 404) and has improved config file handling now. Added some screenshots. README had some changes too.

Edit (11.03.2012):
Added detailed installation steps

windex · n00b Joined: 09 Dec 2012 Posts: 34

Thanks! I'll have to give this a shot!

rookieljw · n00b Joined: 15 Jan 2013 Posts: 7 Location: China

thx but I recommand that do original way to do it,because we can learn something during install gentoo :wink:

shdcn · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 8:18 pm Post subject:

I agree that normal Gentoo installation procedure is very educating but it takes too much user input to get a system working. This is a little tiring if you don't have enough time or when you need multiple installations in a short period.
I believe this script may save the user a lot of time. I did some improvements/cleaning since my first post here and still trying to make it better. It's still not perfect but installing Gentoo with "2-3 commands + 10-15 words of config" is very entertaining from my point of view ^^
Besides that, normal way is always there to teach us more

justabrain · n00b Joined: 14 Feb 2013 Posts: 2

i make my register just to say thank you !

amazing job, im new in linux world, but im learning, and i never can install gentoo before, but with your script, its very easy !

thank you very much !!!

shdcn · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:42 am Post subject:

You're welcome

Hope it serves you well.

justabrain · n00b Joined: 14 Feb 2013 Posts: 2

very well ! thank you ! im in love with gentoo :]

cryptosteve · l33t Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 913 Location: Buchholz/GER

Hmm,
one day too late.

I switched a box from debian to gentoo some days ago ... so I can't test your script now.

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cryptosteve - gpg: 0x9B6C7E15

shdcn · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:52 am Post subject:

My bad, I should post earlier ^^ Hope you use your new Gentoo for a long time and won't need my script

Hypnos · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:38 am Post subject:

You might want to write up your work on the wiki, and link to it from this page.
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shdcn · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:48 am Post subject:

Nice idea Hypnos, I'll do it as soon as possible. Thanks for reminding me.

cryptosteve · l33t Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Posts: 913 Location: Buchholz/GER

shdcn · Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 10:39 am Post subject:

I'm trying to create a modified version for Dell XPS 15z as justabrain requested and it includes Brazilian (pt_BR) localization.
I added pt_BR related parts to the original script too. So the script can handle three locales now; English, Brazilian and Turkish.

shdcn · Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 12:57 pm Post subject:

Easygentoo works fine on a PC but it needs some tinkering for laptops (to get a ready to use system). Because I couldn't find a laptop for testing until yesterday. Now I'm torturing poor little thing with endless compiles to make sure everything is fine.

shdcn · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:44 pm Post subject:

I made some little changes (kernel config, USE flags, packages etc.) and had some installs on my laptop to test them all. Everything is working fine.

dataking · n00b Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 51

shdcn · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:23 am Post subject:

shdcn · Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 4:06 pm Post subject:

Looks like some changes were made to mirrors (directory layout) and now my script is having problems while trying to download stage3 tarball and portage snapshot. Trying to fix it at the moment.

Edit: Fixed it temporarily. Looking for a better solution but script is working for now.

dataking · n00b Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 51