Re: [gentoo-user] Clean-up after latest updates

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 19 April 2009 05:18:25 Walter Dnes wrote:

[snip]

> 2)  I go through /var/log/portage/elog after updates, and check for
> warnings.  I got the following with xinit-1.0.8-r4
>
> > WARN: postinst
> > If you use startx to start X instead of a login manager like gdm/kdm,
> > you can set the XSESSION variable to anything in /etc/X11/Sessions/ or
> > any executable. When you run startx, it will run this as the login
> > session.
> > You can set this in a file in /etc/env.d/ for the entire system,
> > or set it per-user in ~/.bash_profile (or similar for other shells).
> > Here's an example of setting it for the whole system:
> >     echo XSESSION="Gnome" > /etc/env.d/90xsession
> >     env-update && source /etc/profile
>
>     Could someone please explain in plain English what this means?  I.e.
> what are the plus and minus sides of doing the above?  Should I bother?

There are about a brazzillion ways of getting X to start manually. It's 
telling you some way supported on gentoo. It starts with the usual type of 
configuration - a global one for all users and/or one just for a specific user 
in their home directory.

One of the things xinit does is look for the variable XSESSION. If set, it 
will read the contents of it and try and run that as an X session. There are 
no real pluses and minuses to either way. If you admin a huge box with many 
users, you might want to set a default of Gnome for everyone, and let users 
change it if they want in their home dir. If this is your personal machine, 
there is one user - you - and the setting is best done in your home dir (most 
howtos on the net will refer to this method).

It's the old story of Unix - YOU have complete freedom to do things any way 
you want unconstrained. You also have the responsibility of knowing what you 
are doing :-)


> 3)  I notice that gcc-4.3.2-r3 has been installed.  I understand that
> the commands to upgrade are...
>
> gcc-config i686-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.2
> env-update && source /etc/profile
>
>     Have there been any problems encountered with 4.3.2?  Do I need to
> re-emerge sytem and world?

NO.

The only time you ever need to rebuild system and world is when the tool chain 
has broken the API/ABI used in earlier versions. If this happens, every blog 
site on the net, this list, the gentoo forums and the gentoo docs will be full 
of just about nothing else and how gcc breaks everything.

Plus you will have an elog message insisting that you to do it.

You didn't get such a message or read such a blog. Therefore, you do not need 
to do it and do not need to waste 48 hours of your life.

> Actually, I might decide to clean up CFLAGS
> in my /etc/make.conf from the current...
> CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mfpmath=sse
> -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
>
> to a simpler...
> CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mtune=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer
> -pipe"
>
> and rebuild with that.

You don't need mtune if you have march. The binaries will run on the machine 
that built them.
No need to rebuild anything, as nothing will change much with that change in 
CFLAGS.


> 4)  Speaking of /etc/make.conf, there was some news about Radeon HD
> cards being moved to a separate driver group and requiring a change in
> /etc/make.conf.  I'm using a card from an older computer, which lspci
> shows as...
>
> ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
>
> Since X is working, I assume that my card is not a member of the Radeon
> HD family.  My /etc/make.conf includes the lines...
>
> INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse"
> VIDEO_CARDS="intel vga"

Hmmm. I'd say your X is running on the vga driver. What driver is actually 
loaded as per Xorg.0.log?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com