Re: [Sheflug] Help with xorg and gentoo

[Graham <hl06@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday 05 December 2006 22:48, Wonkey Donkey wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm posting purely as an interest right now.
>
> I am looking at a hardware upgrade near to xmas or the new year. An Intel
> Core2Duo and probably a Bad Axe /Bad Axe 2 mobo, or one of the Asus
> Workstation boards.
>
> My favourite Linux of choice right now is Gentoo, despite the recent
> problems with lots of circular dependencies, failing ebuilds and such like.
> With a little patience and effort, it is still a very good distro.
>
> But, what I would like to do is see if there are any Gentoo guru's and also
> Xorg guru's on the list, who could help me fine tune my /etc/make.conf and
> my xorg.conf.
>
> I won't post what I am using in this actual message; but I am convinced
> that the /etc/make.conf USE flags are at least partly responsible for the
> circular dependencies, and I have seen various opinions on the USE flags;
> some say less is more, others say include everything you think you might
> need.
>
> As for the xorg.conf, well the basis of the one I am using now is from an
> old Dell laptop I used to own about 3 or 4 years ago. I have simply kept
> the file and modified the bits I knew needed changing.
>
> I went to one of the online modeline generators, and input the specs from
> my monitor manual to try and make sure I was getting the correct timings
> etc, and they came back with a message that the frequencies and all were
> out of range. Yet I know those frequencies work in windows, so the monitor
> is capable of delivering them.
>
> Then, finally, there is the fonts section. As a rule, I generally emerge
> all of the european based font files, and add the path for each of them;
> and I have no problem enabling anti-aliasing too. But when I load certain
> websites, the fonts still look all wrong, or totally unreadable. In some
> cases, its like Helvetica is used for the entire web page, and as we know,
> Helvetica doesnt render particularly well. Possibly something to do with
> font substitution and aliasing. I have followed the Gentoo fonts guide;
> disabling bindist to get bci and such, but Im still not convinced I am
> getting the best appearance. And Im of the feeling that the fonts guide is
> out of date anyway, as the USE flags it mentions are different to those
> available in the local files and the web lists.
>
> So, if there is anbody who can help in these areas, I would much appreciate
> it. I will be using the same monitor and similar graphics card, so
> hopefully i can get a tweaked xorg.conf sorted beforehand. Likewise in
> /etc/make.conf, its only the USE flags that need sorting. The rest of it,
> as far as I know works fine and should only need the -march changing.
>
> I can post the existing make.conf and xorg.conf as a starting point if
> anybody is willing to take a look. I would also be interested in seeing
> what conf files other people are using, if its not too much trouble.
>
Steve - 

What hardware are you planning on using? I'm certainly not a guru, but have 
got 3D hardware acceleration working  on LTSP terminals (nVidia cards) and 
also with onboard Intel 865 (IIRC) and the latest (£30 mobo) onboard VIA 
Unichrome card systems - normally by banging my head against them for some 
time until they work. I run nothing but Gentoo now (with VMWare when 
necessary).  

The "VIDEO_CARDS" entry in /etc/make.conf just saves time compiling for every 
card; and I've switched from frugal "USE=" to putting everything which might 
be used in to save recompiling all the time. Having only a few USE flags 
always seems to break something later on.  

Doubt if I can help re fonts - mine appear fine in most apps, Konqueror and 
Firefox - less so with Opera. I followed the UTF-8 Gentoo guide and installed 
a few fonts (even the M$ ones), and haven't bothered changing the Opera 
defaults.

I've found xorgcfg to be pretty good starting point once the drivers are 
installed - not used modelines sine RH7. 

Regards,

Graham


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