I'm currently running Sabayon(with E) on one of my laptops, Crunchbang on my other.. and Crunchbang/Vista on my main PC.

I spent 3 days trying to get Gentoo to run how I liked it on my main pc; I learnt quite a lot.. especially about the Kernel, compiling and the like. I'm a pretty big Linux noob (However I do have programming skills in C++/C) so I was hoping that with Gentoo I'd get a "forced" introduction into Linux.

Technically it did work - as I mentioned earlier, I learnt quite a lot. However I seriously require a GUI and I installed X, Enlightenment (E17? i think) and other packages. I even got the Xorg server to run - I could also Left/Right click with my mouse; just not move (Its a razor mouse btw.. I tried to add it with the other devices yet it kept failing).

Currently i'm using Crunchbang because after 3 days (and approx 40 hours) I just gave in; I reinstalled it more than once with the attempt at fixing errors in the previous install (I learn by repetition); anyhow even after I could solve so many problems like ethernet and my graphics-card.. I just never got Enlightenment working.

What do I really require to run a GUI like E17? Many of those online wiki's (Arch/Gentoo) automatically assume I have specific files pre-installed because half the time; these guides usually collapse near the end. I really want to reinstall Gentoo and stick with it.. even though its frustrating, I still enjoy the learning part - its just when the frustration builds so much and after multiple kernel panics and just nothing working.. *args*

I've tried to really find a proper guide on this matter.. yet I haven't. What is seriously required (the most important things) so I can install either Openbox or E17? How does the "HAL" - equivalent work?

Thanks in advance

Reinstalling won't fix anything. You'd do better to fix whatever has gone wrong. I think you are wasting your time by reinstalling you hit a problem.

I have no experience with e17, but just as e16, I assume (from what I see around) that it's not trivial to set up and get running. I will probably never leave the alpha state. So, if you really want to use that you will have to be prepared to play around a bit. In the while, I suggest installing something else, so you can at least work decently (fluxbox, openbox, or whatever you are comfortable with, anything that works and is stabler than e17). Then you can toy around knowing that at least you can resort to a usable configuration in two seconds if you need so.

In any case, I can't give any diagnostic out of this, you don't provide any meaningful information. So, what works and what doesn't? Can you see just the plain X cursor or is e17 working at all? Please, as said, try fluxbox or the like and see if that works. If X doesn't start at all, we will need more info to get this working.

udev works well, but that's not too relevant to the regular user. It could be called hal, hotplug, mdev or anything else. To the user this is irrelevant, and in any case, everything into portage should work without hal nowadays.

As for openbox, all you need to do is to emerge it. Then either configure X to launch it on startx (editing your ~/.xinitrc) or select it in kdm, gdm, slim, xdm or whatever you use to login.

It worked to an extent -> It would basically load to a pretty grey screen (Right clicking would give me a menu which i could only tab over - however the menu options never "changed" graphically unless a new set of suboptions opened. The pointer itself would never move; I tried using a basic mouse to see if it was based on the Razor Naga (Still no change).

I realize that reinstalling doesn't help fix problems; However I still learn with each attempt and i'm the opinion that repetition is the best way to seriously remember/learn something.

I'm using Openbox on Crunchbang (which I seriously love).

What i meant with "What do I require" - what are the prerequisites for a functional GUI that are not included with a standard gentoo install? I realized "Xorg?" is one, but is there something else I'm really lacking?

Has udev superseded HAL?

Hopefully that was a better explanation of my problem :-)

Mmm, are you perhaps trying to configure X using xorg.conf? If so, you should remove it and let X do the work for you. Make sure that you have set the "udev consolekit devicekit" USE flags in /etc/make.conf.

I am curious about your $INPUT_DEVICES (also in /make.conf). On modern systems, and current gentoo, that should generally be set to "evdev". You should not need any longer the older "mouse" and "keyboard" X drivers, and you should definitely move out of the way any xorg.conf file(s) that you have around /etc/X11, /root or in some other path where X would look for it.

I am only guessing, since I don't have a way to know for sure whether this is your problem.

This "evdev" driver will handle both your keyboard and your mouse, and requires the event interface enabled in your kernel. You can take a look here to set it up properly.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml

In any case, the mouse problem is the first thing you need to fix, before worrying at all about the WM or the Desktop.

If this is not your problem, then I would need to take a look at your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file (or wherever your log lives) to see what's going on with your mouse.

Unless you are repeating the wrong thing

Well, there's no special requisite, and anyway, that's what dependency resolution is for. All you need to worry about is setting the correct values for $INPUT_DEVICES and $VIDEO_CARDS in /etc/make.conf, everything should be described in that link I posted above. Once done that, just emerging your window manager (or desktop) of choice should push into your system all the needed packages, including all the input drivers.

HAL has been replaced by a lot of small packages that connect to udev in some way. Hardware handling is mostly done by udev itself, but there are auxiliary pieces that do some specific tasks, like upower for power management, or udisks for removable drives handling, etc.

Sometimes the most simple solutions are the best..

I reinstalled Gentoo last night and just a few minutes ago finished setting it up. I emerged Xorg server and OpenBox. Added exec openbox-session to ~./xinitrc, startX and... it worked.

I could use my mouse and with rightclick I could access a default menu. Basically it just worked.

I'm starting to think sometimes its a lot easier to just test things before trying to configure and breaking them :-D lol.

How do I "close" this topic then? I'm happy with Openbox to be frank and even though the original problem wasn't fully solved.. it no longer exists *grin*. You were right tho that they (as in OpenBox) were much quicker and easier to set up because apart from emerge OpenBox and xinitrc, I had to do absolutely nothing.

I guess if i have any OpenBox questions i'll use the search feature / create a new topic

Thank you @i92guboj

I am happy that you have found your way around. In any case, nothing stops you from trying to get e17 running, now that you have a working system. Changing from one wm to another is just a matter of changing your xinitrc, so it's easy to test many wms.

Above your first post you will find a button called "Thread tools", clicking it will show a menu that has the option you are looking for.

See you around