Lessons learned while installing Gentoo

roland's picture

If your config is FUBAR, just start the process from stage3 and move on. You will save a lot of time.

broadcom-sta doesn't work well with Network Manager, for which you have to emerge networkmanage (and networkmanager-*) and nm-applet, you may have to install dbus and hald for this to work.Disable mac80211 in the kernel neither like it, but enable wireless extensions and the cf80211 and the lib80211.

Don't install wicd and network manager together, the system will behave weirdly.

If you want to install gnome or gdm you may find yourself in a weird position. You have to emerge (xorg-server or xorg-x11) and (gnome or gnome-light).

There's no such thing as a gdm script in init.d, you have to install xdm and modify /etc/conf.d/xdm and DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm". Use this as a helper: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gnome-config.xml

ALSA will probably not work so you have to emege alsa-utils. You may have to configure the linux kernel, which by default has ALSA enabled.

Best filesystem is ext4 for all purposes. Choose ext2 for the kernel and ext4 for the rest of the system. It's more reliable.