The Funtoo Linux project has transitioned to "Hobby Mode" and this wiki is now read-only.
User:Pnoecker/Undead USB Install
A linux nomadbsd alternative
uefi is in progress, see Talk:Undead_USB_Install
This is an install strategy to target a USB flash stick as / instead of a traditional hard drive or internal solid state drive. this isn't a live cd, this is a persistent root funtoo install that changes will keep living on.
In this run i will use a 64gb 100 mb/s sandisk, 32gb minimum for gnome, 16gb are ok for xfce lxde lxqt type builds. get a fast usb3 drive even if you dont have usb3 ports as the flash memory on them is much faster than the flash memory on usb2 keys which will improve usability.
this section is for mbr partitioning with gparted, use uefi with bios boot partition for legacy support
I'm using gparted on xubuntu (any running linux system with gparted should be able to follow this guide) to delete the flash key fat32 partition and create a single jfs / partition labeled as root, and mount it to /mnt/funtoo. We're using JFS because we want as much raw speed, and power from the install possible.
we want our USB to be targeting generic hardware so we can have our root funtoo compatible with most modern hardware. prefer nouveau drivers over nvidia because KMS loads intel and possibly other video card systems.
you can also pull your Subarches gnome tarball if you're installing to specific hardware.
root # cd /mnt/funtoo root # wget https://build.funtoo.org/1.4-release-std/x86-64bit/generic_64/gnome-latest.tar.xz root # tar --numeric-owner -xpf *gnome* && rm -f *gnome*
root # mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /run
root # mount -t proc none proc root # mount --rbind /sys sys root # mount --rbind /dev dev root # mount --rbind /run run
were using googles name server simply because its universal, and anyone can access it anywhere.
root # cd /mnt/funtoo && env -i HOME=/root TERM=$TERM chroot . bash -l root # echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf && passwd root # mv /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup
If you're using gpt partitioning run this block:
root # echo "LABEL=BOOT /boot vfat noauto,noatime 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
were disabling swap because we didn't partition for it, and switching the compile directory to ram instead of on disk. im compiling on 16gb of ram but 8 should be sufficient, possibly even 4gb or less if you avoid large packages. Were setting the host name, and merging a handful of packages.
root # echo 'PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/run"' > /etc/portage/make.conf && rc-update del swap boot
root # echo "LABEL=FUNTOO / jfs noatime 0 1" >> /etc/fstab root # echo "tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nodev,nosuid 0 0" >> /etc/fstab root # echo 'hostname="undead"' > /etc/conf.d/hostname root # ego sync && emerge jfsutils grub haveged linux-firmware media-fonts/noto firefox-bin
use old school mbr method of installing grub.
root # grub-install --target=i386-pc --no-floppy /dev/sdc root # ego boot update && rc-update add haveged
final install size is around 14,500MB gnome can fit in a 16gb usb stick, but it's a tight squeeze and unix file systems degrade in performance at around 80%-90% full. 32gb keys are good, 64gb are excellent, 128gb keys can emerge the world.
rebuild the kernel video drivers modules.
root # emerge -1 x11-drivers/nvidia-kernel-modules
DONE!
When you boot into your new system use nmtui to setup networking:
root # nmtui
to not run nvidia:
root # ego profile mix-in gfxcard-nouveau root # ego profile mix-in -gfxcard-nvidia
remove nomodeset from /etc/boot.conf and change timeout to 0
root # nano /etc/boot.conf
If you're having problems with nouveau not playing sound over HDMI emerge pavucontrol:
root # emerge pavucontrol
to fix the clock to eastern standard time:
root # rm /etc/localtime root # ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Detroit /etc/localtime
The magic words to update:
root # emerge -avuND @world root # emerge -av --depclean root # ego boot update
every so often you will want to purge sources to keep the stick as low memory usage as possible
root # rm /var/cache/portage/distfiles/*.tar.bz2 root # rm /var/cache/portage/distfiles/*.tar.xz root # rm /var/cache/portage/distfiles/*.tar.gz
Xfce4
to install from a minimal tarball and build up xfce4 the merge commands are
root # ego profile flavor desktop root # ego profile mix-in xfce root # emerge alsa-utils xfce4-meta xorg-x11 networkmanager
gparted
you can emerge gparted, and use funtoo undead usb instructions to install funtoo on another usb, or deploy to an actual hard drive.
root # emerge gparted
further securing
i use a sudo user, disable root login, & have a 1tb home partition for my home theater massive media storage. Package:Sudo
i use dnsmasq to block advertising, and cache dns traffic to accelerate web browsing. Package:Dnsmasq
i use dnscrypt proxy to encrypt all dns requests so 100% of the web traffic from my undead stick is encrypted. Package:Dnscrypt
eix
use eix to browse portage to see packages you can emerge.
eselect
use eselect to set various system options
Browser
emerge firefox-bin or install brave Package:Brave
Branding
add fortunes piped through cowsay to the shells
root # emerge fortune-mod cowsay root # echo "fortune | cowsay" >> .bashrc
root # echo "www.funtoo.org" > /etc/motd
windows 10 utc
if you're running ntp on undead usb you will want to set any dual booting windows clocks to be universal. in an administrator run command prompt run this:
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" /v RealTimeIsUniversal /d 1 /t REG_QWORD /f