Funtoo Linux First Steps

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After booting into a new Funtoo Linux installation, you are ready to explore the full capabilities of your system.

Essentials

New Funtoo Linux systems generally benefit from performing the following steps:

Installing an Editor

By default, Funtoo Linux has the nano and vi editors installed. nano is the default editor.

If you have a favorite editor, you can install it now:

# emerge vim

Default editor

Here is how to change the default system text editor:

# echo EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim > /etc/env.d/99editor

After logging in again, or typing env-update; source /etc/profile in the current shell, the new system editor will now be active.

Installing a logger

It's a good idea to emerge to install a system logging daemon, and then enable it. This will ensure that any important system messages are logged to text files in /var/log.

Metalog is a popular lightweight logger:

# emerge metalog
# rc-update add metalog default
# rc

Creating a user account

It's a good idea to create a normal user account that you can use for general Linux tasks. Before rebooting, create a user account for everyday use. Adjust the groups in the example below to match your needs. Some of them may not exist yet on your system. Replace "<user_name>" with the name you're going to use for your everyday user. The "-m" option instructs useradd to create a home directory for your user. See man useradd for more info.

# useradd -m -g users -G audio,cdrom,video,wheel <user_name>

Don't forget to set a password for your new user:

# passwd <user_name>

Changing profile

Currently, Funtoo only supports a modified version of the 2008.0 profile. Running eselect profile list will show all available profiles.

# eselect profile list
Available profile symlink targets:
  [1]   default/linux/amd64/2008.0 *
  [2]   default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop
  [3]   default/linux/amd64/2008.0/developer
  [4]   default/linux/amd64/2008.0/server

In this example, we will enable the "desktop" profile, which enables many USE flags that a typical desktop user would find useful. We will come back to the topic of USE flags in a bit.

# eselect profile set 2