Mailing List Archive

x86 handbook corrections
I posted this on the Forum before I saw the mailing list.

I thank you who are involved in the development of the book because it
is very good.

I am a newbie to Gentoo. I was following the steps in the book from
the beginning in order so that I would not miss anything.

I did not have any problems with the Installing Gentoo chapter and the
12 step sections.
I did not have a problem with Working with Gentoo and those 5 sections.
I did not have a problem with Working with Portage and those 5 sections.
I skipped over Gentoo Network Configuration. My network is simple and works.
The X Server Configuration HOWTO is wear I first had trouble. It was
at the end when the instructions said to start HAL.
I followed the instructions and the response was that HAL was not
installed. Up to this point there had been no instructions to install
HAL. This wasn't a show stopper because the fix was obvious, just
install HAL and then run the command again and everything should be
fine. It was.

Maybe the step to install HAL should be put in before the step to start HAL.

The other surprise was not so obvious. When I tried to start X, it did
not start but came back with a lot of text on the screen and some
error messages. Some of the error messages were about xterm and xclock
and something else missing. But there had been no instructions to
install those. I figured out how to install those packages.

Maybe the step to install those 3 missing packages should be put in
before trying to start X.

Now another problem came up. I had to go to the forum to figure out
what was wrong. I would not have figured that one out if I had not
searched the forum. The problem was a couple of variables missing.

VIDEO_CARDS="<card_type>" Mine is radeon, I have the X1650 with the R500 chip
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev"

There weren't any instructions in the book up to the point where I was
in the book that said to put those variables in the /etc/make.conf
file.

Maybe the step for the variables should be put in also before trying to start X.

Once I fixed the above problems X started with no problems.

Overall the documentation that I have read up to this point is very
good. I only shared this simply because the problems would not have
come up if the steps had been in the book.

Not complaining just pointing out some things that probably would make
things easier for the volunteers on the forum if corrections were made
to those parts of the book where the steps are missing.

Again, I thank you who are involved in the development of the book
because it is very good.