I am new to Gentoo and mostly have used Slackware. I installed Gentoo yesterday. That went ok, no problems. I installed Xorg-server and configured it. I tested that with "X -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf". The video and mouse worked just fine. I then emerged FVWM with the following use flags "debug gtk imlib nls perl png readline stroke tk truetype". The installation seemed to work but when I use startx the screen goes black and then back to the terminal. No error messages just the x server is waiting to shutdown. I really like Gentoo and I really like FVWM. Is there any error logs I can look at to trouble shoot the problem why FVWM doesn't start or any advice on setting up FVWM for Gentoo.

Did you try the wiki?
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/FVWM

Mons

Those are the instructions I pretty much followed. When I run "XSESSION=fvwm2 startx -- :1 vt8" the screen goes black then goes back to the console with the message "Waiting for X server to shutdown". I would try and troubleshoot it but there are no error messages and I don't know of any logs I can look at except for the Xorg log. That seems to be fine and even when I test the config file, it works. SO I am thinking its an issue with FVWM but I am not sure were to look or start.

barn63,

is a really bad idea. the debug use flag makes some applications unusable.

Turn off debug and rebuild anything you emerged with that flag on. If you are a developer, you may need to use the debug flag on selected packages only.

With the rebuild complete, startx again and post the content of /var/log/Xorg.0.log that file will tell what Xorg did as it started and maybe why it failed.

I haven't seen that wiki, but I'd rather forget about it. If you are launching fvwm by hand, using startx, just use your ~/.xinitrc file to launch fvwm, put this inside ~/.xinitrc:

After that, do "startx". The fvwm logs will be on ~/fvwm.log, the X log will probably be at /var/log/Xorg.0.log or similar. If that doesn't work, then we can start looking at both logs.

PS. As very well NeddySeagoon said above, try a -debug build unless you have a very good reason to enable "debug". However, the debug flag with fvwm shouldn't cause any big issues, only some extra verbosity. But just in case, try without it.

When I install, should I emerge xorg-server, configure and test THEN emerge FVWM or is there a better process?

barn63,

Gentoo works best when you build on what you know works.
Install xorg-server and make it work with twm, which you get too.
If you want to use a binary blob video driver, make Xorg work using the vesa driver first.

When it works, you can add to it, that keeps the problem space smaller when you add something and it breaks.

In any case, looking at the logs as I told you above will tell you where the problem is: X or fvwm.