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.

Fundamentals

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:

# eselect editor list
Available targets for the EDITOR variable:
  [1]   /bin/nano
  [2]   /bin/ed
  [3]   /usr/bin/ex
  [4]   /usr/bin/vi
  [ ]   (free form)
# eselect editor set 4
Setting EDITOR to /usr/bin/vi ...
Run ". /etc/profile" to update the variable in your shell.

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

Installing a logger

It's a good idea 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

Necessary applications for daily usage

A list of very useful tools:

app-misc/screen

Allows you to have persistent login sessions.

app-misc/tmux

Similar to screen -- some people prefer it.

app-admin/sudo

Grant root privileges to selected users and command combinations.

sys-process/htop

Colorful and informative text-based process list.

# emerge --jobs=5 app-misc/screen sudo htop

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,games,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.

# eselect profile set 2