Setup Gentoo on Asus U30JC-QX010X : Part 1

Here is how to setup Gentoo on my brand new asus. Summary :

• Resize partitions with gparted.
• Setup minimal gentoo
• Update Windows 7 boot loader

Partitioning :

• Burn last GParted live iso (current is 0.5.2-9).
• Enter BIOS (sup key)
• Switch boot devices
• Launch GParted
• Remove 30 GB from D: (/dev/sda5)
• Add / partition : 25 GB (/dev/sda6)
• Add /home partition : 5 GB (/dev/sda7)

I don't think I need a swap partition. To install Gentoo, I followed both x64 (last updated in 2008) and x86 (updated in 2010) guides.

• Boot : gentoo with fr keymap.
• Set root pasword : passwd ...
• Load wifi : modprobe ath9k
• ln -s /etc/init.d/net.lo /etc/init.d/net.wlan0
• Edit /etc/conf.d/net and /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Copy them from another box through a usb key or edit them from scratch with nano. /etc/conf.d/net :

modules=( "wpa_supplicant" "!iwconfig" )
wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext"

/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf :

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
 ssid="freebox_essid"
 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
 psk="secret"
 priority=20
}

• Start network : /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start
• Mount partitions :

mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/home
mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/gentoo/home

• Set date

Stage3 :

cd /mnt/gentoo
links http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml

• Links keys : Download / Quit.
• releases/amd64/current-iso/stage3-amd64-20100408.tar.bz2

tar xvjpf stage3-*.tar.bz2

• snapshots/current/portage-latest.tar.bz2

tar -xvjf /mnt/gentoo/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/usr

make.conf :

nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf

• Got CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS from Gentoo wiki.
• MAKEOPTS is cpu count plus one.

CFLAGS="-march=core2 -msse4 -mcx16 -mpopcnt -msahf -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"

mirrorselect (free.fr) :

emerge mirrorselect
mirrorselect -i -o >> /etc/make.conf
mirrorselect -i -r -o >> /etc/make.conf

Chroot :

cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
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"

Portage :

emerge --sync

USE="-fortran -ipv6 mmx nptl nptlonly sse sse2 unicode"

locale & time :

nano -w /etc/locale.gen

en_US ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
fr_FR ISO-8859-1
fr_FR@euro ISO-8859-15
fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime

Kernel (2.6.32-r7) :

emerge gentoo-sources
make menuconfig

• Default .config
• Changes :

    Device Drivers  --->
[*]   Network device support  --->
[*]     Wireless LAN  --->
[*]       Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11)  --->
<M>         Atheros Wireless Cards  --->
<M>           Atheros 802.11n wireless cards support
    File systems  --->
<*>   The Extended 4 (ext4) filesystem
[*]     Ext4 extended attributes
[*]       Ext4 POSIX Access Control Lists
[*]       Ext4 Security Labels

CONFIG_ATH_COMMON=m
CONFIG_ATH9K=m
CONFIG_EXT4_FS=y
CONFIG_EXT4_FS_XATTR=y
CONFIG_EXT4_FS_POSIX_ACL=y
CONFIG_EXT4_FS_SECURITY=y

make -j5 && make modules_install
cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.32-gentoo-r7

nano -w /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

ath9k

• fstab :

nano -w /etc/fstab

/dev/sda6 / ext4 defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/sda7 /home ext4 noatime   0 2

• network : copy net and wpa_supplicant.conf (you can use alternate console with Alt-F2)

cd /etc/init.d
ln -s net.lo net.wlan0
rc-update add net.wlan0 default
emerge dhcpcd wpa_supplicant

System configuration :

emerge syslog-ng vixie-cron
rc-update add syslog-ng default
rc-update add vixie-cron default
rc-update add sshd default

• Set root password (do not skip this step!) :

passwd

• Config files :

nano -w /etc/conf.d/clock

TIMEZONE="Europe/Paris"

nano -w /etc/rc.conf

EDITOR="/usr/bin/vim"
XSESSION="e16"

nano -w /etc/conf.d/rc

RC_PARALLEL_STARTUP="yes"

nano -w /etc/conf.d/keymaps

KEYMAP="fr-latin9"

grub :

emerge grub

nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf

default 0
timeout 50
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Gentoo
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.32-r7 root=/dev/sda6

grub

grub> root (hd0,5)
grub> setup (hd0,5)
grub> quit

• Save boot sector (to some usb key):

dd if=/dev/sda6 of=boot.grub bs=512 count=1

Reboot :

exit
umount /mnt/gentoo/dev /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo/home /mnt/gentoo
reboot

Update boot loader :

• Steps based on this post
• Copy boot.grub to C:\
• Open a cmd as administrator :

C:\>bcdedit /export bcdedit-export-100513
L'opération a réussi.

C:\>bcdedit /create /d Gentoo /application BOOTSECTOR
L'entrée {4bd6ad4c-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} a été correctement créée.
L'entrée {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} a été correctement créée.

C:\>bcdedit /set {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} device boot
L'opération a réussi.

C:\>bcdedit /set {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} path \boot.grub
L'opération a réussi.

C:\>bcdedit /set {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} locale fr-FR
L'opération a réussi.

C:\>bcdedit /displayorder {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa} /addlast
L'opération a réussi.

C:\>bcdedit -v
...

Secteur de démarrage en mode réel
---------------------------------
identificateur          {4bd6ad4d-7c0c-11de-baef-deb9d273c9fa}
device                  boot
path                    \boot.grub
description             Gentoo
locale                  fr-FR

Now you should be able to select Gentoo on next reboot. Not seen in amd64 guide :

ccache
emerge -vuD --newuse world
emerge --oneshot libtool
dispatch-conf
perl-cleaner all
python-updater

Notes :

• grub menu is not visible ?!
• A lot of packages need to be emerged, still.

Some hardware info is available in next post.