I failed to install the "most difficult" Linux distro but here's why I'm sticking with it

Published Aug 4, 2026, 6:30 AM EDT Former radio and TV guy (I Heart Radio and PBS). Now a writer, researcher, and musician who writes about the absurdity of our modern world and other offbeat topics. Specializes in weird music, the old web, retro video games and tech, and researching strange, yet interesting things. His work has appeared in Vice, Tedium, Star Trek.com, Today I Found Out, Typebar, SyFy Wire, and How To Geek. Currently working on a variety of music, web, and writing projects. Visit him on the web at https://djbuckfreelance.neocities.org/. I love using Linux and experimenting with different Linux distributions, but I usually do so on a virtual machine, so I don't royally screw something up. It's a fun hobby, but the last thing I need is to crash and delete my entire system (again). Beyond that, there's just something fun and satisfying about trying out a new OS, customizing it, and using it. With so many different Linux distros out there, there are bound to be a few that require more technical knowledge and expertise than others. Some of my Linux-enthusiast friends recommend both Gentoo and Linux from Scratch to me. I don’t think I’m quite ready to attempt Linux from Scratch yet (I’m getting there), but Gentoo seemed interesting. Considered by some to be the “most difficult” version of Linux, Gentoo seems both intriguing and challenging to work with. So I gave it a shot. I attempted this experiment last year, when I first became interested in Gentoo. Before that, I had plenty of experience with other distros, like Ubuntu, Red Hat, and Mint. Since I made this attempt, I've been dedicating more time to studying Gentoo and remain very invested in getting it up and running in a virtual environment. I also made a lot of mistakes along the way, which I've since learned from. Gentoo seems challenging but fun I wanted a challenge and to see if I could get it running on a virtual machine At the recommendation of a friend, I decided that it might be fun to try Gentoo out first. Maybe that wasn't the best idea, but I'm nothing if not adventurous. Once I had it in my head to try out Gentoo, it was only a matter of time before I wanted to try a few different distros and perhaps a few new Linux apps. I occasionally enjoy reading the FOSS forums and just generally nerding out about unique operating systems. A friend also recommended I try Arch or Gentoo for even more control and customization. I decided to give it a shot. I’m a hobbyist and Linux enthusiast, but my background is in journalism, radio, and television engineering. So installing Linux this way is kind of new to me. My goal here was to answer a few questions and learn something new with this install: Does the install process live up to its “difficult” reputation? Will it install and run properly in a virtual machine? Will I stick with it and explore it further? For this install, I decided to use a virtual machine to experiment with Gentoo, avoid messing something up on my hobby computer, and to help decide if I want to tackle a full partition. In this case, I selected QEMU/KVM. I had tremendous luck installing other operating systems on it, so I thought it might work for a Gentoo test drive. It was certainly a unique and eye-opening experience. Basic setup and installation are time-consuming The Gentoo handbook is an invaluable resource For this project, I chose the AMD64 minimal version of Gentoo. Why? Because it’s bare-bones and is essentially just a bootable environment with the tools I need for the installation. Plus, the Gentoo handbook recommends it. The first step was setting up my virtual machine. My host machine has plenty of resources available to handle a Gentoo install. For initial configuration, I went with: 8 GB RAM 6 CPU Cores 60 GB disk space This might not have been the best configuration, as I learned later, but we're not going to sweat it right now. I spent a few hours reading over the handbook and kept it open in another window as I worked on the installation. The handbook is pretty, well, handy and well-written, so I was happy to have it by my side. Setting up and mounting partitions is pretty fun, actually This part of the installation process absolutely lives up to its reputation I kicked things off from the minimal install disk and then set up my partitions. I created a root partition using fdisk, since this installation is being used as a test drive, and not a server/multiple-user machine. I got started by running fdisk to create my new GPT disk label, as the Gentoo Handbook recommended. I created the boot partition first, followed by the swap partition. Finally, I made the root partition, carefully following the handbook instructions. Next, I formatted the file systems. I started with the boot partition using the command mkfs.vfat -F32. The swap partition followed, using the mkswap command to initialize it and the swapon command to enable it. Finally, I formatted and mounted the root partition. Staging and installing Gentoo This is the stage where my experiment began to fall apart For the stage file, I changed the directory to the mounted location using the cd /mnt/gentoo command. After that, I downloaded the systemd .tar file from the mirrors to use as my stage file. Installing it used the command tar xpvf stage3-*.tar.xz --xattrs-include='*.*' --numeric-owner from the installation manual. After a massive, cool-looking wall of text, it was time to configure the make.conf file that Portage (Gentoo’s package manager) uses. Using nano, I was able to get into the file and configure it. After exploring the handbook’s suggestions, I adjusted MAKEOPTS to "-j6I" to match the number of cores I have in the VM, so it’ll speed up compile times when I run parallel jobs. It only took a few seconds to write the changes, so I moved on to chrooting. I’ve never had to chroot anything before (it just stands for “change root”), but it seemed straightforward. Gentoo listed all the commands in the handbook, but in my haste, I mistakenly tried using an Arch Linux shortcut: arch-chroot /mnt/gentoo, which isn't actually available on the media. I know better now. The shortcut didn’t work, likely because it isn’t included in the Gentoo minimal ISO. So I ended up making a directory and mounting the file systems one by one. When I tried to chroot it, things went south. Something got corrupted during the tarball extraction, leading to several frustrating attempts to re-download and re-install it from different mirrors. Failing to install Gentoo makes me want to try again And I learned a lot along the way Credit: David J. Buck / How-To Geek I should have spent more time reading the manual. I made far too many mistakes along the way and it's no surprise that the installation didn't work. But I am undeterred and will try again in a few months. Despite failing to get a proper installation going the first time, I learned quite a bit about setting up a Linux installation and grew increasingly more comfortable running commands and configuring things, so that was pretty cool. After almost an entire year has passed since this botched installation, I've gotten to the point where I'm running different distros as partitioned hard drives, in VMs, and on tablets. But I had to fail at this to get there. So, does the Gentoo install process live up to its “difficult” reputation? Yes and no. It’s complex and has a lot of moving parts. If you don’t have the technical expertise or comfort level to mess with it, you might want to get more comfortable with a different distro first before diving into it. That's what I plan to do before my next installation attempt. I went into this project a little dubious. Although I have experience with Linux and use it every day, Gentoo and Arch still seem a bit daunting to me, and it's well-known they're not simple installations. I’ll need to change a few things and set aside a few days. I have a few options: Reconfigure the virtual machine and try a fresh installation. Try installing it on VirtualBox in my home lab (this will be the most likely option). Ditch the virtual machine entirely, install it on a partition on my hobby computer. Source an old laptop, wipe it, and start a Gentoo install from scratch. Draw on what I've learned and accomplished since I tried this out to make the next installation run more smoothly. Compiling a kernel can take quite a long time, but I would like to spend more time setting up a new installation and trying to get it to work, so you'll hear from me again very soon. Failure is a learning opportunity, but it’s worth giving it another shot After reviewing the handbook, chatting with more experienced users, and successfully installing Arch using a similar process in QEMU, I feel like I can get this going again. I plan to use a program called Boxes for my next attempt. But that’s the best thing about screwing up a hobby project: it leaves room for improvement, learning, and enrichment without terribly high stakes. That’s half the fun of being a hobbyist and working with Linux instead of Windows. I plan to try again with a more methodical approach. I’m definitely sticking with it and excited to see how it goes! I'll probably try a few other distros out on my virtual machine first, though. It seems like a pretty good idea, but one day, I too shall tame the cow and become a full-fledged Gentoo user (which is just a roundabout way of saying: stay tuned for the follow-up to this piece, where I finally complete and install a few programs using Gentoo). Just think of all the forum clout I'll receive when I add “uses Gentoo” to my signature.