Well, the issue with the 3D seemed to be that that the xorg-server-1.4.906 release wasn't quite good enough any more, and that I needed xorg-server from git. This of course means dependencies on other git libraries as well as re-compile all the x11-drivers ... woohoo for me. But the plus side to all of this is I got my Compiz back. I really like the Scale and Expose fucntions.

I had a strange issue last night. After updating a few X11 packages from git, I rebooted and everything seemed to work fine. I then shutdown and went over to a buddies, booted up only to see X was locking up my session. I would get a blank screen, and then the system would become unresponsive. I tried re-emerging a few of the applications but the problem still existed.

I instead removed all the keywording for the r500 drivers and the X11 beta applications, and then added back in just the things needed for xorg-x11-7.3. I downgraded everything else, and then my X came back. I then re-added the unmasking and kewording for the r500 drivers, updated everything is now my enviroment comes up. Crazy .. except one small issue. My AIGLX isn't working. 3D seems to work, but I am getting strange errors.

First of glxinfo reports Direct Rendering: Yes. But when I run glxgears, I get an RGB error about double buffering. This seems to prevent any type of compositing manager from running. I tried running Frozen Bubbles, and it works fine. All my 2d acceleration is now working fine, just compositing/3d seems to be borked.

I guess this is the pain fun of working with live git packages

Finally I got my synaptics drivers to work properly. With the new HAL, you are able to have it hotplug your input devices into X, this means they don't need to be listed in X. I tested this out on my laptop a few months ago, and it worked. Only problem is I couldn't pass along the variables for my synaptics touchpad. Well, after months of waiting and research, I finally got it figured out.

I created the file /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-synaptic-options.fdi, which, in Gentoo, are the user added hal policies, system installed are in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/. I then added the following into that file


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="input.x11_driver" contains="synaptics">
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>


This turns on SHMConfig which allows synclient and gsynaptics to change synaptic settings on the fly. Sadly, in between noticing this taking effect I had moved to a few pre-release applications to get the 3d r500 accelleration with ati drivers. Below are a few application and versions I am running


[ebuild R ] sys-apps/hal-0.5.11-r1
[ebuild R ] x11-base/xorg-server-1.4.99.906
[ebuild R ] x11-drivers/synaptics-0.14.6-r4


Also note, i just notice xf86-input-synaptic-0.15* has been added to the portage tree for the 1.5 prerelease, need to check this out.

The trip is over, and I am already back to the dail grind. It was a nice relaxing vacation. I wasn't ready to come back, but I don't think my wallet could handle another few days down there between the swim up bar and the casino at night.

Seems a lot has gone on in the OSS world, I am trying to catch up on everything. New drivers, new software, new blog post ... oh my.

Tomorrow morning, less then 10 hours from this moment, I will be on a plane to the Bahamas. My wife and I will be there with her family for 5 days. I can't wait!