Does anyone know why the Gentoo minimal installer isos (install-amd64-minimal-20150924, admincd-amd64-20150924, install-x86-minimal-20150929) do not seem to support usb3.0?

When the disk image is written to a USB, grub loads and USB functionality works as expected, but when the installation system begins to boot I lose all USB support (including the system's ability to detect the installation device).

I had this issue once before months/years ago and was able to remedy it by disabling usb3.0 ports on my machine. The problem is, now I am not able to disable usb3.0 ports via the bios.

I have tested other distros, using the same hardware and they function as expected.

Other people have had similar issues (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/gentoo-87/gentoo-install-usb-keyboard-issue-810993).

I'm wondering if anyone has some insight as to why this has been an ongoing issue? It does seem to be obscure and intermittent enough that it might be specific to the hardware (I am using asRock, and others have used Asus).

Use SystemRescueCd on USB instead, or any other Linux you may have on USB.

Thanks for the response. As it so happens that is what I ended up going with. But that wasn't the point of my post, I want to know why this is an ongoing issue that does not seem to be getting addressed by anyone?

Nobody really uses Gentoo ISOs. I personally never downloaded one, my first install 11 years ago was with Knoppix. There was a discussion on Gentoo forums about stopping issuing Gentoo install media whatsoever, but it seems somebody is willing to do it.

You may have to build a kernel or add in a driver. Everyone was in this boat when usb3 came out. No easy way around it. Configure a tarball for your hardware.

Gentoo is a good distro but it has always been a very custom type.

Start here maybe. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/USB/Guide