Before we start, we first list what hardware requirements you need to successfully install Gentoo on your box.

Pretty much every IA64 should be able to boot Gentoo. At the moment we only have LiveCDs, so your machine must have a CDROM drive installed.

The Gentoo Installation CDs are bootable CDs which contain a self-sustained Gentoo environment. They allow you to boot Linux from the CD. During the boot process your hardware is detected and the appropriate drivers are loaded. They are maintained by Gentoo developers.

All Installation CDs allow you to boot, set up networking, initialize your partitions and start installing Gentoo from the Internet.

The Minimal Installation CD is called and takes up around MB of diskspace. You can use this Installation CD to install Gentoo, but only with a working Internet connection.

A stage3 tarball is an archive containing a minimal Gentoo environment, suitable to continue the Gentoo installation using the instructions in this manual. Previously, the Gentoo Handbook described the installation using one of three stage tarballs. While Gentoo still offers stage1 and stage2 tarballs, the official installation method uses the stage3 tarball. If you are interested in performing a Gentoo installation using a stage1 or stage2 tarball, please read the Gentoo FAQ on How do I Install Gentoo Using a Stage1 or Stage2 Tarball?

Stage3 tarballs can be downloaded from current-stage3/ on any of the Official Gentoo Mirrors and are not provided on the LiveCD.

You have chosen to use a Gentoo Installation CD. We'll first start by downloading and burning the chosen Installation CD. We previously discussed the several available Installation CDs, but where can you find them?

You can download any of the Installation CDs from one of our mirrors. The Installation CDs are located in the current-iso/ directory.

Inside that directory you'll find ISO files. Those are full CD images which you can write on a CD-R.

In case you wonder if your downloaded file is corrupted or not, you can check its MD5 checksum and compare it with the MD5 checksum we provide (such as .DIGESTS). You can check the MD5 checksum with the md5sum tool under Linux/Unix or md5sum for Windows.

Another way to check the validity of the downloaded file is to use GnuPG to verify the cryptographic signature that we provide (the file ending with .asc). Download the signature file and obtain the public keys:

$ gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 96D8BF6D 2D182910 17072058

Now verify the signature:

(Verify the cryptographic signature)
$ gpg --verify <downloaded iso.DIGESTS.asc>
(Verify the checksum)
$ sha1sum -c <downloaded iso.DIGESTS.asc>

To burn the downloaded ISO(s), you have to select raw-burning. How you do this is highly program-dependent. We will discuss cdrecord and K3B here; more information can be found in our Gentoo FAQ.

• With cdrecord, you simply type cdrecord dev=/dev/hdc <downloaded iso file> (replace /dev/hdc with your CD-RW drive's device path).
• With K3B, select Tools > Burn CD Image. Then you can locate your ISO file within the 'Image to Burn' area. Finally click Start.

Once you have burnt your installation CD, it is time to boot it. Remove all CDs from your CD drives, and insert the Gentoo InstallCD. Reboot your system and wait for the EFI firmware to load on the console. The exact option to select will differ depending on your hardware.

Most implementations usually present an option directly on the first menu (the EFI Boot Manager). The exact wording would differ but would usually be something like "CD Boot", "Removable Media Boot" or "Internal Bootable DVD". Select this option.

If your EFI implementation does not present such an option, you can boot the CD using the EFI Shell. All implementations will present an option to enter the shell on the Boot Manager menu. Select this option. The EFI Shell will display a list of usable block devices (blkn:) and also a list of filesystems the EFI Shell can actually access (fsn:).

In most cases the option you want will be the fs0: choice; regardless, (provided the CD drive recognizes the CD), you should see one fsn entry for your CD drive (the CD drive's EFI device path will contain CDROM in the wording). Enter fsn:, replacing n as required and including the colon, followed by the Enter key. Next just type elilo followed by the Enter key.

You will now be greeted by the ELILO boot message and asked to enter a kernel to boot as well as any additional options to pass to the kernel command line. In most cases just hit the Enter key or wait five seconds. Only one kernel is supplied on the IA64 InstallCD, the gentoo kernel.

Several kernel aliases are provided which add extra options to the kernel command line, which you may have to use instead of the default gentoo option depending on your hardware:

The gentoo-serial option forces a serial console on the first serial port (ttyS0) at 9600bps. This may be required on some older EFI implementations where the kernel can't detect what console to use. You should try this option if booting the default gentoo kernel produces no output and if you are using a serial console. If you use a serial console which is not connected to the first serial port you must manually select the console by typing gentoo console=ttyS#,9600 where # is the number of the serial port.

The gentoo-ilo option forces a serial console on the ttyS3 serial port at 9600bps. This should be used if you're installing using the HP iLO remote console feature.

The gentoo-sgi option forces a serial console on the ttySG0 serial port at 115200bps. This should only be needed on SGI hardware, and if the console is properly selected in the default EFI settings, or if you are using a video console this option should not be required.

You can also provide kernel options. They represent optional settings you can (de)activate at will.