[Sussex] Installing Gentoo - more questions

[John D.]

On Wednesday 17 Dec 2003 9:47 am, Geoff Teale wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 09:16, John D. wrote:
> > Hi list,
> >
> > where to start with my questions?
>
> At the beginning - a very good place to start..
>
> > Erm, Ok, now that I've managed to get kde running under gentoo, I notice
> > a few subtle differences, from the way it's presented.
>
> The Gentoo KDE package is vanilla KDE setup as if you had downloaded it
> from kde.org and installed it (which is exactly what you have done - via
> a somewhat simple route) rather than some predetermined config (a la
> Mandrake, SuSE etc..).
>
> > In the kde control centre, there is an X configurator, and I thought it
> > would be good to fine tune a few things.
>
> *Shudder*
>
> > my mouse, monitor and keyboard, seem to be set up properly, though when I
> > look through the list, my graphics card is listed as being a generic nv.
> > Yet I don't follow why, because when I check out http://www.xfree86.org/
> > list of compatible hardware it shows me
> >
> > 10de nVidia group
> > 	0172 NV17 (GeForce4 MX420)
>
> ... which would be supported by the "Generic NV" driver in XFree86.
>
> > which identifies my graphics card exactly.
>
> ... yeah but it's still in the generic nv driver.  The GUI tool is
> probably trying to auto-detect your the driver based on you card.  It
> won't know about the proprietary Nvidia driver you have installed.
>
> > If I then look at my /etc/X11/XF86Config file and go to the Graphics
> > section I can see
> >
> > Section "Device"
> > Identifier "Standard VGA"
> > Vendor "Unknown"
> > Boardname "Unknown"
> > Driver " VGA"
> >
> > Section "Device"
> > Identifier "geforce4 mx420" (which I think is what I've put in)
> > Driver "nvidia" (again, I've changed this from nv otherwise I can't see
> > the screen as the "picture" area is corrupted and jumps about)
> > #Videoram 65536
> >
> > Why does it seem to be showing 2 graphics devices?
>
> The first is some dodgy template device - shouldn't harm anything, you
> can define as many devices as you like - latter in the file you select
> which device to use.
>
> Generally you shouldn't be surprised if KDE's GUI config tool writes all
> kind of crud into your file
>
<snip>

Sorry for the length of the e-mail, but both stuff I've found on the net and 
the desktop guide for gentoo, dont explain things in a way that an idiot like 
me understands.
I sort of understand what Geoff has said, but now when I'm either typing into 
an app or scrolling with the mouse, I'm getting a "vertical column of 
horizontal lines that flicker on the screen".

So, recalling what Steve Dobson said to me when he was telling me "Debian 
stuff", i.e. if mandrake works properly on my system, then I can use it as a 
reference system, 

because of the differences in the way that gentoo and debian work, does this 
still hold true?

Because I've looked at the /etc/X11/XF86Config in both mandrake and gentoo, 
they are very different, because I can see 4 different "ModeLine"(s) that 
have been put into the gentoo version of  /etc/X11/XF86Config, three of which 
I've had to comment out, because it makes the screen jumpy and unreadable, 
whereas under mandrake i seem to have 2 (well about 4 really, but some are 
clearly marked .old), one just called  /etc/X11/XF86Config and one called  
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4, both of which seem to have a lot more and different 
stuff to what's in the gentoo version.

I'm getting vvv confused about all this, could someone point me in the right 
direction perhaps (oh and the "different" stuff is even different for my 
mouse, which "on the face of it" seems to be working OK in gentoo - well i 
think it is anyway?).

regards

John D.