📝 Made notes on current work in gentoo

gentoo/current.md

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+# Current Tasks
+
+## Brief Intro
+
+This document ins solely here as a sort of note to my future self regarding
+various Gentoo related things I'm working on.
+
+## Kernel 6.18
+
+I've downloaded Kernel 6.18 and it's giving us a few issues. First and foremost
+the gentoo kernel devs have turned off iptables in the kernel by default,
+forcing us to choose between the `xtables-legacy-multi` or `xtables-nft-multi`
+via `eselect`:
+
+```sh
+eselect tables list
+```
+
+On the old kernel (6.12), we want to stay on 1, as it allows `ufw`/`iptables` to
+just work out of the box. On the new kernel (6.18), we want to switch this
+profile as it allows docker to run (sort of, see below), but `ufw` outright will
+not work as it relies on iptables.
+
+What this means in essence is we have to convert over to `nftables`, which I've
+successfully tested is, while certainly more involved than `ufw`, is not that
+difficult.
+
+[Gentoo Wiki's nftables entry](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Nftables)
+
+You may also want to review the
+[Gentoo Wiki's iptables entry](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Iptables).
+
+Now, the issue still remains that `docker` also breaks because it heavily
+depends on `iptables`, and `nftables` support is
+[experimental as of version 29](https://docs.docker.com/engine/network/firewall-nftables),
+a version that Gentoo currently does not have in its
+[repos](https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app-containers/docker).
+
+I have found evidence that there is a compatibility layer between `iptables` and
+`nftables` which some have gotten to work on Debian called `iptables-compat`. I
+have enabled a USE flag on `nftables` called `xtables` which supposedly tries to
+address this compatibility. I have not yet tested this on kernel 6.18, but will
+do so when we have time.
+
+## Zen Kernel 6.18
+
+This all came about while learning about Gentoo Kernel compilation for the first
+time, and while I have gotten a version of 6.12 working, 6.12.59 specifically.
+While stable, I am more used to the bleeding edge of Artix Linux and would like
+to have the Zen Kernel patches applied. The Zen Kernel via the Gentoo repos is
+only within the last few versions and that is why I started playing around with
+this.
+
+In short, get the regular 6.18 kernel working, save the .config, redownload the
+zen kernel, apply this config and run `make olddefconfig` and you should not
+have these incompatibility issues. See `updating.md` for details on how to
+upgrade to the zen kernel once you have the regular kernel compiled and working.