• [gentoo-user] Questions about installing Gentoo

    From whiteman808@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jul 4 20:00:01 2025
    Is it necessary to set system locale and timezone before I update world according to set flags in /etc/portage/make.conf (in Arch Linux case before I configure host name, regular user etc.)?

    Will something bad happen with file metadata (creation time, modify time etc.) or other system data if I set incorrect timezone or don't set timezone at all? What wrong could happen if I forget to set locale before updating world while being inside
    chroot?

    Does generated locale together with locale set in /etc/locale.conf affect runtime files and working software on the installed system or it affect only how software presents data for the user? Is it okay to have set L10N="en-US pl de" and only enabled en_
    US.UTF-8 UTF-8 pl_PL.UTF-8 UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen?

    Is it necessary on systemd installations to run systemd-firstboot after installing system? Can I type only command systemctl preset-all and skip systemctl preset-all --preset-mode=enable-only if I'm doing Gentoo systemd installation? What is the
    difference between systemctl preset-all --preset-mode=enable-only and systemctl preset-all?

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  • From Wol@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 5 13:20:01 2025
    On 04/07/2025 18:50, whiteman808 wrote:
    Is it necessary to set system locale and timezone before I update world according to set flags in /etc/portage/make.conf (in Arch Linux case before I configure host name, regular user etc.)?

    If you mean you are editing make.conf, then no. That is a big pile of *defaults*, that will have no effect until something comes along and
    reads it (primarily "emerge").

    Will something bad happen with file metadata (creation time, modify time etc.) or other system data if I set incorrect timezone or don't set timezone at all? What wrong could happen if I forget to set locale before updating world while being inside
    chroot?

    Is your system clock correct? All your metadata should be *stored* as
    UTC, so changing timezone, locale etc only changes how it is displayed,
    not the actual values.

    Does generated locale together with locale set in /etc/locale.conf affect runtime files and working software on the installed system or it affect only how software presents data for the user? Is it okay to have set L10N="en-US pl de" and only enabled
    en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 pl_PL.UTF-8 UTF-8 in /etc/locale.gen?

    I think the answer is "it depends". My systems are en_GB, and I do my
    best to get rid of en_US because it confuses things horribly.
    Unfortunately I think some things depend on the US locale or the C
    locale or stuff like that, so I think ADDING locales and I18N is fine,
    removing stuff that came with the default system is "here be dragons" territory.

    Is it necessary on systemd installations to run systemd-firstboot after installing system? Can I type only command systemctl preset-all and skip systemctl preset-all --preset-mode=enable-only if I'm doing Gentoo systemd installation? What is the
    difference between systemctl preset-all --preset-mode=enable-only and systemctl preset-all?

    Sorry don't know. I don't remember doing anything like that for my
    systemd systems, but that was quite a while ago ...

    Cheers,
    Wol

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