Gentoo x86-64 support for a choice of distro

June 18, 2014 6.5k views
konsolebox
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konsolebox
Hi. Do you support Gentoo x86-64?
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5 Answers
sysfu January 12, 2015

Gentoo support was apparently over a year ago and it's probably not coming back. So was Arch linux. That's why I left Digital Ocean for VULTR.

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  • articice January 3, 2016

    I'll try playing around with kexec, but eventually I'll just do the same.

    I mean, implementing completely custom OS images is one thing, that's hard. If I wanted to run a hobbyist OS with a custom filesystem format - that would be hard to support, unless there's some kind of "block access" to hard drive image.

    Adding Gentoo or Arch support is easy. Just another Linux. It's pretty much obvious they just don't want it.
    I mean, I'm not even going to build it there, that's stupid for a production system. I'll build it in-house and then deploy, it's just that I want to build it myself with the software I like and full optimization.

    If it puts an extra strain on the environment, why not just charge more for extra CPU or excessive disk write access? We all know SSDs are expensive :)

asb MOD June 18, 2014
Hi, Unfortunately, we do not currently support Gentoo. It's unlikely that we'll add it as a supported distro. If you'd like to be able to use custom distros, you can show your support by "vote" for custom images at the UserVoice page: https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/3276477-allow-custom-images
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  • konsolebox June 19, 2014
    Thanks I made 3 votes for that. I guess I'd wait until custom distros are already allowed. For now I'd go to other services.
  • Blancrow October 27, 2014

    Any progress on this? I want to see gentoo running on my box

dem December 29, 2014

+1 for Gentoo, any news?

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computercornerplusllc May 23, 2015

Just do a stage 3 install to your liking:

  • delete the installed distro
  • move your stage 3 over
  • use kexec to boot your custom kernel
  • create a stage 4 image/template for new droplets
  • change hostname(s) and IP(s) that match the new droplet

That's what I did to solve "my needing to run Gentoo problem".

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  • powerman September 14, 2015

    I need this too, but I'm using hardened-sources. Can you please explain in more details which OS it's better to choose for droplet, how to overwrite that OS with stage 3 on running system, and, finally, how to "use kexec to boot your custom kernel"?

    • computercornerplusllc September 14, 2015

      Pick the old Debian 6.0 x86_64. Complete the entire Gentoo install guide. Install and run Midnight Commander. Use MC to delete all directories/files except for /sys /dev and /mnt. Move contents of /mnt/gentoo to / (root). You have to do a mknod of a file under /dev for init 6 to work or go inside the interface and do a power cycle. You load your custom kexec script in /etc/local.d/ that checks the kernel parameters to know whether to execute kexec to boot your custom kernel or bypass running the script if your custom kernel is already running.

obask August 6, 2015
  • change hostname(s) and IP(s) that match the new droplet After changing to static IP address snapshots restore are not working. How to fix this problem?
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  • computercornerplusllc September 14, 2015

    Why would you expect that to work when the scripts aren't written with Gentoo in mind? The maintenance/repair procedures for a Ford F150 aren't going to be the same for a BMW 325i at the Imports Repair Auto Shop.

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