Tag: init

Gentoo init – boot from linux software raid with superblock (metadata) version 1.2 and no autodetect

If you want to use software raid device in your Gentoo Linux system (init boot, not systemd) with boot partition resided in the raid for better redundancy but using metadata 1.2 version you won’t have autodetection feature on boot and there are some additional steps you may consider!

Linux kernel’s autodetection feature of the software raid is only for superblock (metadata) version 0.90!

If you create a software raid with superblock version 1, 1.1 or 1.2 you want to boot from it you must use:

  1. Grub 2, lilo won’t load the kernel from such paritions.
  2. include mdadm in initramfs
  3. initramfs booted with aditional parameter “domdadm” (in fact, it is not a “native” kernel option, read below)

Keep on reading!

Manual install of base Gentoo Linux x86_64 with openrc (init) and uefi using minimal installation cd

Here we are going to show the minimum steps to install a base Gentoo Linux on your computer – server or desktop using “Minimal Installation CD”.
The installation ISO CD is generated on 11.09.2018, but you can use an older or newer one, this guide uses commands, which are available in really old ISOs (10 years ago) and probably will be available in the future, too! The idea is not to change this ISO a lot and to have only the basic tools for installation, which should be the same for a really long time! If you need more tools there two other options: Hybrid IS0, which is a LiveDVD – a system with GUI and Admin CD, which is an extended version of the minimal installation CD (no GUI).

Our base Gentoo system will use:

  1. OpenRC, which is based on init to boot the server. This is the default in Gentoo, but you might have problems using Gnome
  2. GRUB 2 UEFI enabled and the server will be booted in UEFI mode. Recently most of the desktop machine and server support it and in many cases it is mandatory to use a new hardware.
  3. No GUI will be installed (KDE, Gnome, Xfce and so on), there are other tutorials for this, you can check here (coming soon)

Keep on reading!