Hi all,

First of all I apologise if I'm posting in the wrong place --- I searched in distros and couldn't find gentoo. Second, I'm new to linux so probably the answers to my questions are obvious to you guys!

Ok, I recently installed openSuSe on my PC, works like a dream, no real problems there. Today I thought to be a bit ambitious and tried and installed gentoo on my laptop just to see what another distro is like. Now I 'm a bit overwhelmed, think I was a little over-ambitious

I have the following questions:

1. ACPI
I installed the kernel with the "gentoo acpi=on" option. Is there any way to check that I have acpi installed correctly with the appropriate options? I gather it is quite important, and any mistake can fry the hardware on the laptop that's why it's top of my list.

2. Change from GNOME to KDE
How do I do this? I want KDE as my default desktop to start every time the computer starts. I tried "switchdesk" or "startkde &" but neither work. There must be some conf file that I have to change -- does anybody know where this is and what changes do I have to make?

3. Sound card not working
The sound card on my laptop is Integrated Intel Chipset AD1881A - ICH 3, but it is not working. Do you know a solution to this? (not really important but would be nice to have sound).

4. (optional) What is the equivalent to Yast in Gnome?
How do I install additional packages in GNOME?

Any additional advice you might have for somebody like me who is not a computer genius and new (but very keen to learn more) to linux is very welcome.

Thank you so much.
Michael

1. Depends on if you built the kernel manually or via genkernel. If you built it manually you could have enabled ACPI ... genkernel might have enabled it.
Try this:2. If you are not using XDM/KDM/GDM then your .xinitrc file will define the Window Manager. Example, to use KDE your .xinitrc file should have "exec startkde" in it.

3. You would have to check to see if you have kernel/module support for your card: 4. With Gentoo you install all applications using Portage. ie. emerge xxxxx


Note: most of your questions could be found by looking at some of the Gentoo Documents.
One of the strongest things I found out about Gentoo is it's documentation ... including the Gentoo Wiki.

Thanks for your help. Turns out I had acpi enabled, also added acpid so it runs automatically at boot. I am using GDM, so compiling kde now (using Portage, which looks great).

Sound card...haven't cracked that yet, but its in the config file, checked out a forum that was saying to check lpsci (or something like that) and my soundcard looks fine there. I will crack that too (wish I had more time).

But gentoo is cool, i think i prefer it than SuSe.

Anyway, just want to say thanks!

/Michael