Can i install the Cosmic desktop during gentoo install?

Message

itsthicc · Post by **itsthicc** » Mon Feb 02, 2026 6:08 pm

I'm curious if I can add the cosmic de during install of gentoo? Or what would be the steps? any help would be great.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Mon Feb 02, 2026 7:01 pm

itsthicc,

There is a wiki page.

The Gentoo install is not one thing. The handbook gets you an install that can boot to a command line, connect to the internet and install other things.
You can add more things as you find you need them and remove things too.

I would add a DE after my install could boot for itself but you should be able t do it in the chroot too.
My reasoning is that if there are boot problems, it keeps the problem space small, which makes for ease of diagnosis and fix.

itsthicc · Post by **itsthicc** » Tue Feb 03, 2026 10:29 am

NeddySeagoon wrote:itsthicc,

There is a wiki page.

The Gentoo install is not one thing. The handbook gets you an install that can boot to a command line, connect to the internet and install other things.
You can add more things as you find you need them and remove things too.

I would add a DE after my install could boot for itself but you should be able t do it in the chroot too.
My reasoning is that if there are boot problems, it keeps the problem space small, which makes for ease of diagnosis and fix.

i tried this and none of it worked.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:00 pm

itsthicc,

itsthicc wrote:i tried this and none of it worked.

That does not help us help you.

Tell us what you did. Point to a wiki page or whatever, if that makes it easy.
Tell us what happened.
Tell us what you expected to happen and why.

If you get en error message asking your to post logs, put them on the web using wgetpaste.
You may need to play with the -s and -S options.

moniaqua · Post by **moniaqua** » Wed Feb 04, 2026 8:26 am

itsthicc wrote: i tried this and none of it worked.

In this case I doubt you will be able to install Cosmic desktop during gentoo install.

I installed this time xfce before I went into the new system, but it was about the third install (not counted in the tries during those third installs

)

The wiki page is helpful if Gentoo already is installed and running on your pc. If you're new to Gentoo, I'd really suggest to follow the handbook first. It's maybe a whole lot of things to learn but I think it is worth it. After the handbook, well, I'd personally prefer an easier solution; reading that I have to add a different repository for a desktop, unmask packages and kinda often the wort "unstable" really makes me a bit nervous. xfce is fine, really, KDE looks fancy enough, Cinnamonn isn't that bad either - when the wiki-page states "stable", I might one day Cosmic give a try

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Wed Feb 04, 2026 10:52 am

moniaqua,

The testing keyword is not as dangerous as it once was.
Since portage overlay support has been improved, most of the development has moved to overlays. Thus things are somewhat tested before they are ever moved to ::gentoo

There is still some breakage/incompatibility but it's fairly stable now.

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » Sun Feb 15, 2026 9:15 am

so don't use overlay then?