[gentoo-user] Xorg problems: Intel 945GM (Gigabyte Motherboard onboard video)

[Alan E. Davis]

I got caught, apparently like many others, installing Gentoo to another PC.
I've been running Ubuntu (probably Intrepid Ibex, two versions ago), so I
know this video adapter is supported.  But various issues have ambushed me
in trying to get this working.

1.  On first install, the keyboard didn't work.  I followed the instructions
to the letter, the mouse even worked, but the keyboard didn't.  I killed off
the windows one by one with the mouse, and the machine was then stalled in
that state.

2. I remembered a keyboard issue from my home machine, involving a new
version of xorg, so I (unwisely perhaps) added the ~amd64 keyword to
make.conf.  Thereupon followed a series of issues, involving one hypothesis
after another.  I never saw a screen with the "X" cursor again.

3. There is an issue surrounding HAL.  I added a hal keyword, recompiled,
tweaked the kernel: no good.  I got a black screen.  Keyboard wasn't
working, so I followed a few more hunches.  I was unable to read the docs in
a nice screen, as I was using links.

4. Eventually I decided to put the hal keyword back in, and recompiled.  In
the interim I had removed the ~amd keyword from make.conf, and I ran emerge
-uDav --newuse world.  Thinking better of it, a few merges into that, I
replaced the ~amd64 keyword, and started the same process.  I found along
the way that I needed to serially recompile the kernel, re-merge
xf86-input-*, etc., again.  I then decided to enable evdev, even though I
was intimidated by that from my earlier issue with an nvidia card.

5.  I finally read some forum topics and mailing list threads.  Apparently
this is not uncommon at ALL.  A gentoo wiki article about the Intel cards
was referred to, but is unavailable.  Interestingly, even the google cache
is clear of these missing gentoo wiki articles!

I've finally left the machine overnight to run it's course of
re-installation etc.  If that doesn't work, I have already copied over the
grub.conf entry for the ubuntu install on the same disk, so that's an
option.

I guess my question is what is the correct way to go about installing gentoo
on a machine with these on board Intel adapters?

[I can reinstall the whole system once I figure out what's going on.  I must
have this machine working within 24 hours, though, hence Ubuntu looms on the
horizon.]


Alan Davis

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world,  but when
you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird...
So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing---that's what counts.

   ----Richard Feynman