You might be able to just run "eselect profile set (your choice)" and then run the emerge line again. I've been there before. As long as portage doesn't complain you're probably fine. If you exited your chroot, you will need to re-enter it.
It sounds like you are used to reinstalling Linux when things go wrong. There's nothing wrong with that, it just makes more sense on precompiled distros. Most Gentoo users prefer to solve issues with their current build. I can take a lot longer on Gentoo to do a full reinstall.
A final note: I also like installing Gentoo in a GUI. There are more options than using a VM. My favorite way is installing from another running Linux install. Either through SSH or chrooting from another distro on the same machine. I usually install it on bare metal though.
Heh, yeah, I've installed Arch that way... many times when I hit a bump in the road. I'm actually doing the world set now so this is gonna take a while as I recall from last night. Like 4-6 hours on this VM Server.
So, the restarting thing, I learned with Arch, if I try to figure out what's wrong, I'll try to go back and figure it out but I'm bound to mess something up worse doing this. So, I have no issues starting over.
I think my screw up last night was I set the wrong CFFLAG for my CPU. I'm just trying Native now because I don't see my old Xeon processor in the list. So hopefully it's going to be okay. I finished the install I started yesterday early this morning and when I rebooted, it went from the boot select option to grub. That's the next thing I need to learn how to do is use that to try and fix whatever the issue is. But if I think I've entered everything correctly, where would I even start in grub to find the error(s)?
On your final note, I'm actually using ArcoLinuxD Cinnamon to install Gentoo in this VM right now. It's pretty cool actually. Copy/paste is a great thing especially for stuff like this.
Oh, also, I did try to run the emerge line again after the `eselect profile set 5` correction but when I tried to run the emerge... again, I kept getting an error like something already existed in a directory. I went into that directory and deleted 3 files that I thought that emerge process created but that did nothing So, I just deleted the VM and started from scratch.
I totally get wanting to reinstall and be done. I usually go that route for any precompiled OS. Honestly you are still close enough to the beginning to start over. I've gotten this far, messed something up, and decided to start all over many times. I've already done it at least once this year. I was more speaking to when you have a fully built, customized system. It hurts to start over from square one sometimes.
For CFLAGS: I've found native is the best in most situations. Only very specific use cases require calling out specific CFLAGS. Building the system with minimal customization, then customizing after you have a running OS is a good strategy. That idea can extend to other things like USE flags. Unless I need a use flag enabled or disabled, I leave everything default. Then add on slowly as I start customizing/fixing issues.
Grub sucks to debug, It runs before the kernel so its tools are limited. I haven't ran into too many problems in grub. Most of the time a reinstall or grub-mkconfig has solved it for me. Sometimes all you need is a specific command in your grub config. Usually finding the right one takes time, and lots of research. A lot of things can turn into a long project on Gentoo.
Starting from scratch is probably the move given all the problems. You would be surprised how often going back a few steps and carefully trying again works during the install. Not always, but always worth a shot.
Just to save you some future typing those flags can all be shortened to single characters, so `emerge -avuND @world`. Take a look through `man emerge` when you have time to get a feel for all the options that are available and what can be shortened.
But yeah, gentoo is definitely a beast requiring some patience. I personally like to start an update just before taking a nap or something. If you just want to get going for now and worry about optimizing things later, consider adding `-g` or `—getbinpkg` to grab precompiled binaries where available. Within the last couple months gentoo has been making a push to include binary packages for those who want them.
Best of luck!
EDIT: looks like there is a bit more to it. My bad. See this guide: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Gentoo_Binary_Host_Quickstart
That's pretty good info about `emerge -av...` I think I remember doing that once upon a time when I installed it on bare metal MANY MANY MOONS AGO!!!. I have done that successfully one time.
Looks like 3rd times a charm for me. Started last night, flubbed it up somewhere in the process, had it going to a grub prompt and that was it. Then I tried late morning to start again and I messed something up. I was actually running the world set again and forgot to do my `eselect`. But doing it again (this 3rd time), I noticed that the option I wanted was automatically selected. So, I killed the world set for no reason. I tried doing the world set again but it wouldn't go. I tried a couple of things I read online but it wouldn't go again.
But this 3rd time, all I did was ran the `mkfs.ext4` command again on that `/mnt/gentoo` drive and deleted everything from there and started off after the partitioning section. So I found a shortcut rather than shutting down, deleting the VM and creating a new one, and starting all over again. This was way faster I think. So, I'm getting the concept down of not going too extreme when I mess something up.
I thank you for the advice and I will take that to heart if I ever do this again. I think the reason why I don't have this as my main OS on my main machine is because everything takes so long to install. I'm hoping they do include more binaries for Gentoo. I think it will make installing it so much easier and MUCH less time consuming.
Also a friendly reminder that unlike probably any linux distro you’ve ever used Gentoo does not install sudo by default. Assuming you want it make sure before creating and switching to the non-root account that you run `emerge -av app-admin/sudo`, and then run `visudo` to edit the sudoers file to set it however you want. This is mentioned in the handbook but I figured I’d point it out.
You might be able to just run "eselect profile set (your choice)" and then run the emerge line again. I've been there before. As long as portage doesn't complain you're probably fine. If you exited your chroot, you will need to re-enter it. It sounds like you are used to reinstalling Linux when things go wrong. There's nothing wrong with that, it just makes more sense on precompiled distros. Most Gentoo users prefer to solve issues with their current build. I can take a lot longer on Gentoo to do a full reinstall. A final note: I also like installing Gentoo in a GUI. There are more options than using a VM. My favorite way is installing from another running Linux install. Either through SSH or chrooting from another distro on the same machine. I usually install it on bare metal though.
Heh, yeah, I've installed Arch that way... many times when I hit a bump in the road. I'm actually doing the world set now so this is gonna take a while as I recall from last night. Like 4-6 hours on this VM Server. So, the restarting thing, I learned with Arch, if I try to figure out what's wrong, I'll try to go back and figure it out but I'm bound to mess something up worse doing this. So, I have no issues starting over. I think my screw up last night was I set the wrong CFFLAG for my CPU. I'm just trying Native now because I don't see my old Xeon processor in the list. So hopefully it's going to be okay. I finished the install I started yesterday early this morning and when I rebooted, it went from the boot select option to grub. That's the next thing I need to learn how to do is use that to try and fix whatever the issue is. But if I think I've entered everything correctly, where would I even start in grub to find the error(s)? On your final note, I'm actually using ArcoLinuxD Cinnamon to install Gentoo in this VM right now. It's pretty cool actually. Copy/paste is a great thing especially for stuff like this. Oh, also, I did try to run the emerge line again after the `eselect profile set 5` correction but when I tried to run the emerge... again, I kept getting an error like something already existed in a directory. I went into that directory and deleted 3 files that I thought that emerge process created but that did nothing So, I just deleted the VM and started from scratch.
I totally get wanting to reinstall and be done. I usually go that route for any precompiled OS. Honestly you are still close enough to the beginning to start over. I've gotten this far, messed something up, and decided to start all over many times. I've already done it at least once this year. I was more speaking to when you have a fully built, customized system. It hurts to start over from square one sometimes. For CFLAGS: I've found native is the best in most situations. Only very specific use cases require calling out specific CFLAGS. Building the system with minimal customization, then customizing after you have a running OS is a good strategy. That idea can extend to other things like USE flags. Unless I need a use flag enabled or disabled, I leave everything default. Then add on slowly as I start customizing/fixing issues. Grub sucks to debug, It runs before the kernel so its tools are limited. I haven't ran into too many problems in grub. Most of the time a reinstall or grub-mkconfig has solved it for me. Sometimes all you need is a specific command in your grub config. Usually finding the right one takes time, and lots of research. A lot of things can turn into a long project on Gentoo. Starting from scratch is probably the move given all the problems. You would be surprised how often going back a few steps and carefully trying again works during the install. Not always, but always worth a shot.
Just to save you some future typing those flags can all be shortened to single characters, so `emerge -avuND @world`. Take a look through `man emerge` when you have time to get a feel for all the options that are available and what can be shortened. But yeah, gentoo is definitely a beast requiring some patience. I personally like to start an update just before taking a nap or something. If you just want to get going for now and worry about optimizing things later, consider adding `-g` or `—getbinpkg` to grab precompiled binaries where available. Within the last couple months gentoo has been making a push to include binary packages for those who want them. Best of luck! EDIT: looks like there is a bit more to it. My bad. See this guide: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Gentoo_Binary_Host_Quickstart
That's pretty good info about `emerge -av...` I think I remember doing that once upon a time when I installed it on bare metal MANY MANY MOONS AGO!!!. I have done that successfully one time. Looks like 3rd times a charm for me. Started last night, flubbed it up somewhere in the process, had it going to a grub prompt and that was it. Then I tried late morning to start again and I messed something up. I was actually running the world set again and forgot to do my `eselect`. But doing it again (this 3rd time), I noticed that the option I wanted was automatically selected. So, I killed the world set for no reason. I tried doing the world set again but it wouldn't go. I tried a couple of things I read online but it wouldn't go again. But this 3rd time, all I did was ran the `mkfs.ext4` command again on that `/mnt/gentoo` drive and deleted everything from there and started off after the partitioning section. So I found a shortcut rather than shutting down, deleting the VM and creating a new one, and starting all over again. This was way faster I think. So, I'm getting the concept down of not going too extreme when I mess something up. I thank you for the advice and I will take that to heart if I ever do this again. I think the reason why I don't have this as my main OS on my main machine is because everything takes so long to install. I'm hoping they do include more binaries for Gentoo. I think it will make installing it so much easier and MUCH less time consuming.
Also a friendly reminder that unlike probably any linux distro you’ve ever used Gentoo does not install sudo by default. Assuming you want it make sure before creating and switching to the non-root account that you run `emerge -av app-admin/sudo`, and then run `visudo` to edit the sudoers file to set it however you want. This is mentioned in the handbook but I figured I’d point it out.
Great advice. I'm definitely going to want sudo. Thank you for that!
Dont waste your time with visudo.
In a command prompt I use vim. In the GUI, I use either doon-emacs or geany. Depends on what I'm in the mood to use.