Well I think I’m finally at a very happy point with my new load of Gentoo… While I did run into a few issues, they are very small and they were only related to the fact that I did attempt to get Linux Kernel 2.6.5 loaded with a boot screen and made use of the features within GenKernel to do so… Thats where everything went down hill quick… I tend to try and keep a very trim kernel based on exactly what is in my system… I rarely even do modules, even on the USB devices as I never really change the hardware very often (and when I do it’s usually a change the warrents checking to see if there is a new kernel anyways… ) Well the lesson I have learned is be carefull what you remove from the kernel when you use genkernel… genkernel by default, for those who do not know, loads a config file that is configured in the way the LiveCD is configured… SO this means that there are a LOT of modules you DON’T NEED… … So I started removing and usually one of the things I did is remove ext2 and ext3 as I never use then (reiserfs all the way baby!!)… Well I’m not sure what that all did becuase I could never get the kernel to boot properly with the error message “Kernel Panic: VFS: Could not mount root to /dev/ram0″… No more information than that… Well after quit a bit of changing, recompiling, changing and recompiling… I started over on a clean slate again (their configuration)… and only removed the hardware modules I didn’t need… And that seemed to finally do the trick… The part that I loved about the way the genkernel scripts work is that you can easily implement the bootsplash without ripping your hair out… I started reading the documentation on how to create an initrd by hand and it just didn’t look like something I wanted to mess with… Where as with the genkernel I just pointed it to the right theme… and I’m off… As soon as I get the graphical apps loaded I’m actually going to start playing with creating my own bootsplash screen (I think I’m going to use the gentoo matrix wallpaper that I found not to long ago… of course with the makers permission)… Other compaints…. I am still seeing issues in Gnome 2.6 where the Theme Manager hanges after being loaded the first time… After I kill it and reload it , it comes up fine… Along with no error messages to the console that I discern why it would be doing that… (I know I know… I’m playing with unstable software)… Either way I’ve just about got it and as soon as I do I will be sending off some screen shots (escially since I have been playing with the lila themes for gentoo quite a bit… not my favorite theme in the world but it’s something clean and nice to turn to every now and then)… OK OK I’ll shut up now… but until then… I’ll just add that I am still having the laptop not powering off issue in 2.6.5 along with ACPI not reporting my battery discharge rate… SO … I posted a forum query … we’ll see what happens… (Acer TravelMate 630)
