When I followed The X Server Configuration HOWTO: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml X wouldn't work because I didn't have hal installed and running. It seems the default USE variable doesn't include hal. Is hal really needed to run X? Or is it always needed on some machines? I don't mind that it isn't installed by default, but the documentation should be clearer about whether you need to set USE="hal" and/or emerge hal before doing emerge xorg-server. Also, perhaps the section on hal should go before the section telling you to emerge xorg-server? The guide says "By default, Xorg uses HAL", which is definitely wrong. I installed Gentoo from stage3-i686-20100126.tar.bz2. Reproducible: Didn't try emerge --info Portage 2.1.7.16 (default/linux/x86/10.0, gcc-4.3.4, glibc-2.10.1-r1, 2.6.27-17-generic i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.27-17-generic-i686-AMD_Athlon-tm-with-gentoo-1.12.13 Timestamp of tree: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:00:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 4.0_p35 dev-lang/python: 2.6.4 dev-util/cmake: 2.6.4-r3 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.13 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.6-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.63-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc: 4.3.4 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6b virtual/os-headers: 2.6.30-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="assume-digests distlocks fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/gentoo-distfiles http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_CA.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acl bash-completion berkdb bzip2 cli cracklib crypt cscope cups cxx dri fortran gdbm gpm hal iconv ipv6 modules mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre perl png pppd python readline reflection session spl ssl sysfs tcpd unicode vim-with-x x86 xcb xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia nv vesa" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
AFAIK you only need this when using evdev.
HAL is enabled by default, as it's what upstream preferred with this version, and what the Gentoo maintainers prefer. So unless you change your USE flags, you'll get a HAL-enabled xorg-server, given that the desktop profile is set for HAL. The doc already says to have HAL enabled: [ebuild R ] x11-base/xorg-server-1.6.3.901-r2 USE="hal nptl xorg -debug . . . you just missed it. The rest of the instructions refer to a HAL-enabled X, so it's not hard to guess when to do it.
