gentoo desktop and uninstalling

[blue_wolf]

Hi all,

I have just installed gentoo and i installed gnome, after about 3 months of gnome installing (emerge gnome xscreensaver) it didnt work, great. Well when i say it didnt work startx did load but all it showed was 3 consoles loaded on the desktop and nothing else. So how can i uninstall gnome and which desktop do you suggest i use instead? Thanks

[Slip]

Hi all,

I have just installed gentoo and i installed gnome, after about 3 months of gnome installing (emerge gnome xscreensaver) it didnt work, great. Well when i say it didnt work startx did load but all it showed was 3 consoles loaded on the desktop and nothing else. So how can i uninstall gnome and which desktop do you suggest i use instead? Thanks

Well how can you blame GNOME when you have not even started it? To start GNOME Login Manager directly type not startx but gdm. Or you can still use the startx command but first you would need to edit your /etc/rc.conf to make it start GNOME and not default TWM/XDM.

[loft306]

Hi all,

I have just installed gentoo and i installed gnome, after about 3 months of gnome installing (emerge gnome xscreensaver) it didnt work, great. Well when i say it didnt work startx did load but all it showed was 3 consoles loaded on the desktop and nothing else. So how can i uninstall gnome and which desktop do you suggest i use instead? Thanks

Well how can you blame GNOME when you have not even started it? To start GNOME Login Manager directly type not startx but gdm. Or you can still use the startx command but first you would need to edit your /etc/rc.conf to make it start GNOME and not default TWM/XDM.

in the /etc/rc.conf there is a line XSESSION="" put gnome in there

XSESSION="gnome"

and it will start with the startx or xinit command also you can add under DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm"

DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm"

[blue_wolf]

#gdm
command not found

when i edited rc.conf and typed startx there was just a black screen with an X as the cursor icon. Any ideas?

Thanks

edit:
im reinstalling gnome but i've ran into a problem, when i do an emerge gentoo it tires to install the package docbook-xml-dtd-4.1.2-r5 but it fails with the error message:
[code]
Digest Verification Failed!!!!
/usr/portage/distfiles/docbkx412.zip
Reason: File Size Does Not Match Recorded Size

Any ideas? I guess i have to install the file manually. How do i do that? Thanks

[Cabhan]

Not sure about the second error, try running an emerge --sync and see if that fixes the problem.

As for the whole booting into GNOME, I assume you want to do it from commandline? That's easy!

echo "exec gnomesession" > ~/.xinitrc

Now "startx" should open GNOME.


If that doesn't work properly, then don't exit it, but go back to the first virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and look if there's an error message about X. If there is, let us know what it is.

[blue_wolf]

Thanks for the reply, i did an emerge gnome-light and it went through near enough without error (well when it tried to emerge docbook it said it failed due to the file size didnt match) so i then did emerge --inject docbook and that seem to sort the problem. I then did emerge gdm and did what you said about ~/xinitrc and ran gdm. I can log in as a normal user and get a desktop appear but not as root.
Also, the desktop looks really ugly, i think it is because the resolution is set to 640x480 and not 1024x768. I dont get the option to change to 1024x768 only 640x480. Any idea why i cant change it, i guess it could be a driver problem. Thinking about it i have been messing about with the drivers, i tried to install the nvidia drivers for gentoo rather than the default nv drivers. It didnt work out too well. How can i change back? Thanks for all your help, hopefully by the end of today i should have a working gnome desktop.

[borromini]

Your resolution should be Gentoo-independent... Run xorgconfig as root (or search for it on your system) and adjust the resolutions. Should be a piece of cake if you wanna use Gentoo

[Cabhan]

Also, about logging in as root to the GUI, you generally shouldn't do it.

If, for some reason, you must, the way to do it is running "startx" from the CLI as root. I think there's some way to add root to the GDM menu, but I don't know how.

[jaboua]

I think there's some way to add root to the GDM menu, but I don't know how.

Yeah, I've seen the option in GDM preferences before, but as you said it isn't safe at all...!