amd64 (aka x86-64, x64, Intel 64)

Processor compatibility

The amd64 architecture, introduced by AMD in 2003, covers 64-bit AMD Opteron / Athlon 64 / ... / Ryzen / Epyc CPUs as well as 64-bit Intel Pentium / Core / Xeon processors. If you are not sure which Gentoo architecture you need for your PC, this is most likely the correct choice.

Downloads

Gentoo Handbook Please see the Gentoo Handbook for the complete installation documentation. It explains which files you need at what stage of the installation process. In brief,
  • Boot media allow you to boot from, e.g., an USB stick or CD and install Gentoo using a Stage.
  • A Stage (previously called Stage 3) is a minimal set of Gentoo binaries to build a system in any way possible.
  • Containers and Images provide a ready-to-use Gentoo system, e.g. for cloud or virtual machine usage.
  • All release files are signed with an official OpenPGP key and distributed via world-wide download mirrors.

Boot media

Minimal Installation CD

Minimal Installation CD

This is a small bootable ISO image that can be burned on CD or written onto USB sticks. It contains system administration tools (for installing Gentoo), but no automated installer and no compilers or graphical environment. Use the handbook!

LiveGUI USB Image

LiveGUI USB Image

This is a bootable ISO image that can be written onto USB sticks. It contains a full Gentoo system including Wayland, KDE Plasma, LibreOffice, and many more applications, and boots directly into a graphical environment.

Stages (advanced)

musl stage archives

Hardened musl stage archives

musl stages

For additional information on using musl based Gentoo systems, please see the musl usage guide. Note that users of musl stages will need to be comfortable filing bug reports and sometimes providing patches.

LLVM-based stage archives

LLVM stages

The LLVM-based stages are experimental and use libc++, meaning they aren't ABI compatible with other stages using libstdc++. They are NOT the same as just using Clang globally. Only use with extreme caution. They are not supported at this time unless bug reports come with investigation and analysis.

Hardened / SELinux stage archives

x32 stage archives

Split-usr stage archives

Containers and Images

Docker images

Gentoo provides official ready-to-use Docker images on hub.docker.com.

Docker images

For general information on how to use Docker, see our corresponding wiki page as well as the upstream documentation.

QCOW2 disk images

QCOW2 disk images

The disk images are full bootable Gentoo installations in qemu's QCOW2 disk format. They require UEFI support for booting. One variant comes with no network services and a password-less root account, the other with access locked by default but cloud-init running on boot.

Windows Subsystem for Linux images

WSL images

These images are intended for use with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).