…and Things Were Going Along So Swimmingly.
My computer is in trouble again. I came back from break to discover that about a million different programs had had new versions released, and I installed updates for them. This was wonderful – OpenOffice has come out with the totally new Version 2.0, which doesn’t suck ass like the older one did. Shockwave/Flash/etc is much more stable. I found a better CD-ripping programme. Life was great.
However, things took a turn for the worse when I started noticing that my right monitor would flash when I typed or clicked too fast (at first I thought it was just the right mouse button that caused this, but I’ve found other ways to cause it as well). I’m almost positive this is a software problem, since this never happens for certain actions and almost always happens for other ones. It’s ridiculous, though. A reboot of XFCE lead to my left monitor not turning back on. Upon a total reboot, I found that this was because the nVIDIA modules could not be loaded (nor could the ALSA modules). When recompiling the modules didn’t help, I decided it’s high time I rebuilt my kernel (I was still running 2.6.10-r4, and the most recent kernel is 2.6.15-r1). After 4 tries, I got a working kernel that could load the modules (although some things are still not back, such as support for smb stuff). When I started XFCE back up, I my background didn’t load, and I couldn’t right click on the desktop to get a menu. Poking around revealed that xftaskbar hadn’t started, but I’ve now gotten that fixed again.
At this point, here are the things that used to work but still don’t:
- smb anything – no browsing, no mounting, nothing.
- sound – the modules are loaded, but ALSA can’t seem to find my sound card. I have to play around with this more.
- The bloody right sceen still flashes when I type/click!
On the other hand, I’m running a much newer kernel, I now have support built in to try out udev whenever I finally run out of broken things to fix, and I believe my kernel now has iPod support in it, which should come in handy.
The thing about Gentoo which I both love and hate is that if you can get something working, it is rock solid and works beautifully. Getting it working in the first place, however, is a pain in the ass.
For many many devices to work you’ll need to emerge udev. Emerge udev and that will be nearly it for it to all magically work.
You may need to build samba support into the kernel for that stuff to work. And emerge samba of course.
I suspect you’re right on both accounts. I know how to fix the samba stuff, and was planning on rebuilding my kernel again anyway. I haven’t had udev installed in the past (at least, I don’t think I have) but was planning to try it out, which lead to some other changes in my kernel. I’m gonna try fully putting that in, and see what happens.
Hahaha. So much of this entry is like gibberish to me. Or I make it into something else in my head. Like Samba. Which is a dance. And kernals, well, they’re food. And…
I hope it’s working better though :)