[gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[gottlieb]

My new laptop should arrive this month.  It will presumably support
UEFI, which I have never used before.

I have two questions.

1.  The gentoo handbook favors using the minimal installation CD.  I
downloaded the iso, verified it's integrity, and "burned" it to a USB
stick with dd.

However the wiki page "UEFI_Dual_boot_with_Windows_7/8" says to use a
system rescue CD.  Is that required or can I use the minimal
installation CD?

2.  The handbook, when discussing Booting the installation CD, says

   Important
   When installing Gentoo with the purpose of using the UEFI interface
   instead of BIOS, it is recommended to boot with UEFI immediately. If
   not, then it might be necessary to create a bootable UEFI USB stick
   (or other medium) once before finalizing the Gentoo Linux
   installation.

I don't understand what I am to do?  Must I change the USB stick to
somehow specify UEFI?  Or will the laptop firmware ask me whether to
boot UEFI?  Or something else?

thanks,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[Daniel Frey]

On 07/01/2015 08:17 AM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> My new laptop should arrive this month.  It will presumably support
> UEFI, which I have never used before.
> 
> I have two questions.
> 
> 1.  The gentoo handbook favors using the minimal installation CD.  I
> downloaded the iso, verified it's integrity, and "burned" it to a USB
> stick with dd.

I don't think the minimal CD has UEFI support. At least it didn't when I
installed gentoo on my UEFI systems, but that was some time ago now.

> 
> However the wiki page "UEFI_Dual_boot_with_Windows_7/8" says to use a
> system rescue CD.  Is that required or can I use the minimal
> installation CD?

You can either use SystemRescueCD or use a Mint boot CD. Both are UEFI
bootable. Make sure you actually boot in UEFI mode though, most BIOSes
have a key to bring up the boot menu with a list of choices. UEFI boot
sources are clearly marked there (at least they were when I installed.)

I myself used the Mint CD (I had one on hand already) so I had a browser
to bring up webpages while I installed.

> 
> 2.  The handbook, when discussing Booting the installation CD, says
> 
>    Important
>    When installing Gentoo with the purpose of using the UEFI interface
>    instead of BIOS, it is recommended to boot with UEFI immediately. If
>    not, then it might be necessary to create a bootable UEFI USB stick
>    (or other medium) once before finalizing the Gentoo Linux
>    installation.

If you use SystemRescueCD or the Mint boot CD you'll boot in UEFI mode
so this is irrelevant. Pretty certain you need to be booted in UEFI to
install the boot loader of your choice. I stuck with grub2 and had no
issues installing it.

> 
> I don't understand what I am to do?  Must I change the USB stick to
> somehow specify UEFI?  Or will the laptop firmware ask me whether to
> boot UEFI?  Or something else?

The boot CD/USB needs to support UEFI, if it doesn't you can't boot in
that mode. I think my NUC was F10 or F12 to show the boot menu, then you
can pick the UEFI boot source.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[Jc García]

2015-07-01 9:17 GMT-06:00  <gottlieb@nyu.edu>:
> My new laptop should arrive this month.  It will presumably support
> UEFI, which I have never used before.
>
> I have two questions.
>
> 1.  The gentoo handbook favors using the minimal installation CD.  I
> downloaded the iso, verified it's integrity, and "burned" it to a USB
> stick with dd.
>
> However the wiki page "UEFI_Dual_boot_with_Windows_7/8" says to use a
> system rescue CD.  Is that required or can I use the minimal
> installation CD?
>
You could use almost any distro to install gentoo, I have done it
before, even my first install was the first livecd i found in my CDs
case(LinuxMint), after reading the instructions I didn't found
anything that actually made it a MUST to use the recommendations of
the handbook.

> 2.  The handbook, when discussing Booting the installation CD, says
>
>    Important
>    When installing Gentoo with the purpose of using the UEFI interface
>    instead of BIOS, it is recommended to boot with UEFI immediately. If
>    not, then it might be necessary to create a bootable UEFI USB stick
>    (or other medium) once before finalizing the Gentoo Linux
>    installation.
>
> I don't understand what I am to do?  Must I change the USB stick to
> somehow specify UEFI?  Or will the laptop firmware ask me whether to
> boot UEFI?  Or something else?
>
This is so the EFI information is available inside the booted  OS. if
you don't boot using EFI this information is not available(I'm not
100% sure about this, it's just what I remember at the top of my head)

I remember from reading this list you use GNOME thus systemd, then I
would highly recommend doing the install with a systemd livecd, it
makes it so much practical to get to the chroot and you can test if
your userspace boots right without needing to reboot thanks to nspawn.

Here's a quick description of the procces, using a systemd live
media(I will put the obvious just for completeness):
1. Get the stage3 and the livecd you'll use
2. boot
3. mkdir /mnt/gentoo and get the partition(s) where the installation
will be, ready and mounted
4. tar -xvjpf the stage 3 into /mnt/gentoo
5. cd /mnt/gentoo && systemd-nspawn (this is the replacement for
chroot, it mounts /dev/, /proc, and /sys for you)
6. get the portage tree
7. eselect a systemd profile, I would use the
minimal(default/linux/amd64/13.0/systemd) temporarily so I don't have
to build all of GNOME before booting.
8. emerge -avuDN @world (will get systemd installed) and
9. set a passoword for root and exit the shell, and boot the newly
installed systemd with # systemd-nspawn -b
10. Configure timezone(timedatectl), locale.gen, locale(localectl),
fstab... etc.
11. get a boot loader(Gummiboot the recommendation, and to the dislike
of some, soon part of the systemd package, so systemd will come with a
bootloader)
12. Get a kernel (CONFIG_EFI_STUB is needed to boot with gummiboot)
13. boot and change profile to a gnome one, and emerge gnome or gnome-minimal.

Personally I find that installing Gentoo with systemd is more
practical, mainly because of nspwan.

Re: [gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[Mick]

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On Wednesday 01 Jul 2015 16:33:42 Daniel Frey wrote:
> On 07/01/2015 08:17 AM, gottlieb@nyu.edu wrote:
> > My new laptop should arrive this month.  It will presumably support
> > UEFI, which I have never used before.
> > 
> > I have two questions.
> > 
> > 1.  The gentoo handbook favors using the minimal installation CD.  I
> > downloaded the iso, verified it's integrity, and "burned" it to a USB
> > stick with dd.
> 
> I don't think the minimal CD has UEFI support. At least it didn't when I
> installed gentoo on my UEFI systems, but that was some time ago now.
> 
> > However the wiki page "UEFI_Dual_boot_with_Windows_7/8" says to use a
> > system rescue CD.  Is that required or can I use the minimal
> > installation CD?
> 
> You can either use SystemRescueCD or use a Mint boot CD. Both are UEFI
> bootable. Make sure you actually boot in UEFI mode though, most BIOSes
> have a key to bring up the boot menu with a list of choices. UEFI boot
> sources are clearly marked there (at least they were when I installed.)
> 
> I myself used the Mint CD (I had one on hand already) so I had a browser
> to bring up webpages while I installed.
> 
> > 2.  The handbook, when discussing Booting the installation CD, says
> > 
> >    Important
> >    When installing Gentoo with the purpose of using the UEFI interface
> >    instead of BIOS, it is recommended to boot with UEFI immediately. If
> >    not, then it might be necessary to create a bootable UEFI USB stick
> >    (or other medium) once before finalizing the Gentoo Linux
> >    installation.
> 
> If you use SystemRescueCD or the Mint boot CD you'll boot in UEFI mode
> so this is irrelevant. Pretty certain you need to be booted in UEFI to
> install the boot loader of your choice. I stuck with grub2 and had no
> issues installing it.
> 
> > I don't understand what I am to do?  Must I change the USB stick to
> > somehow specify UEFI?  Or will the laptop firmware ask me whether to
> > boot UEFI?  Or something else?
> 
> The boot CD/USB needs to support UEFI, if it doesn't you can't boot in
> that mode. I think my NUC was F10 or F12 to show the boot menu, then you
> can pick the UEFI boot source.
> 
> Dan

If it comes preinstalled with MSWindows you will need to go into BIOS and 
disable 'booting from legacy BIOS' or 'Compatibility Support Module', as well 
as disabling Secure Boot (select Other OS rather than MSWindows).  The actual 
terminology depends on your MoBo, I'm just sharing here what the Asus MoBos 
use.

The first setting will make sure you will boot into UEFI, rather than MBR.  
The second setting will make sure that the MoBo will not fail to boot due to 
your kernel not being digitally signed by Redmond.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] minimal installation cd vs system rescue cd

[gottlieb]

Thank you Daniel, Mick, and Jc for the clarifications/suggestions.
To respond to Jc, yes I used systemd so you suggestion is apt.

thanks again to all,
allan