Gentoo Prefix Bootstrap Process

Fabian Groffen  Author

Updated July 29, 2009

1.  Bootstrapping in general

Global

Bootstrapping is the process required to get Prefixed Portage installed on your system. Currently, we only have detailed guides for Mac OS X and Solaris systems. If you have another system, you best go with the Solaris guide. Systems known to work are various Linux systems and FreeBSD. Note that for systems where bash is missing, you need to bootstrap it first with the bootstrap-bash.sh script. It can be found next to bootstrap-prefix.sh as indicated by the guides. Windows users can get directly up to speed using the Interix installers.

Bootstrap script

The bootstrap-prefix.sh script is a sort of kickstart in the bootstrap process. It automates downloading the portage tree, installing portage and the necessary temporary helper applications. In addition it tries to setup a profile and some settings where it can.

Targets

Choose one of the bootstrap targets below, to start bootstrapping your system.