HOWTO: Install a basic Gentoo server

If you want to install a new Gentoo server (no graphical system at all), this is the quickest way I’ve found after lots of installations :)

• First, boot the machine with a live CD
• create the partitions you want with fdisk/cfdisk/partition tool you like. In our example we create 3 partions (swap, /boot and /) on our disk /dev/sda
• mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1
# mkswap /dev/sda2
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda3
# mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo && cd /mnt/gentoo
# wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/releases/x86/current/stages/stage3-x86-2007.0.tar.bz2
# wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/snapshots/portage-latest.tar.bz2

  Note: if you are on a different architecture, please use a different release
• tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2
# tar xvjf /mnt/gentoo/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr
# nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
# cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf
# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# env-update
# source /etc/profile
# export PS1="(chroot) $PS1"
# emerge --sync
# cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime
# USE="-doc symlink" emerge gentoo-sources
# emerge genkernel
# genkernel all --menuconfig
# nano /etc/fstab
# nano /etc/conf.d/hostname
# nano /etc/conf.d/net
# passwd
# echo "tts/0" >> /etc/securetty
# nano /etc/rc.conf
# nano /etc/conf.d/keymaps
# nano /etc/conf.d/clock
# emerge syslog-ng && rc-update add syslog-ng default && emerge vixie-cron && rc-update add vixie-cron default && emerge logrotate && emerge slocate && emerge ntp && rc-update add ntpd default && rc-update add ntp-client default && modules-update
# emerge gcc
# emerge world
# emerge grub
# nano /boot/grub/grub.conf
# grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab
# grub-install /dev/sda
# exit
# cd
# umount /mnt/gentoo/boot /mnt/gentoo/dev /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo
# reboot


NOTES: when it’s indicated “nano $SOMEFILE” it means you have to edit and adjust the settings to your own taste.
When you are creating /etc/localtime, use a source file according to your local timezone
And here it is a basic make.conf configuration:

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

USE=”-X -qt -gtk -gnome -kde bash-completion -snmp sockets threads latin1 -berkdb -ipv6 snmp perl”

PORTDIR_OVERLAY=”/usr/local/portage”