useflags trouble

Message

arjend · Post by **arjend** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:45 pm

Well this is my first post here since i'm trying to install Gentoo as a desktop. This is my first experience with Gentoo and it took me a whole weekend to get the minimalbase system compiled (had to retry a few times.

Normally I'm running Debian, so I think Gentoo is a very nice challenge for me.

But now, while installing xorg-server I keep getting errors about 3 useflags, X, acpi and another one i can't remember right now. I added them to my /etc/make.conf file. But running emerge again results in exactly the same error. I must be missing something but I can't find out what exactly. Could someone help me in the right direction? Because im on another machine I'm not able to post my make.conf, but I used the Gentoo-provided-howto to set it up.

Thanks in advance!

Post by **John R. Graham** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:52 pm

@arjend,

Welcome to Gentoo. Before you have your desktop environment up, you can use wgetpaste to post things for us to help you troubleshoot:

Code: Select all

emerge wgetpaste
wgetpaste /etc/make.conf

Just post the URL that wgetpaste produces.

- John

Biert · Post by **Biert** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:06 pm

It would be useful to know what errors exactly you are getting.

Maybe your use flags are overridden? You should know there are essentially 3 places where use flags can be set: in your profile (type "eselect profile list" to see which are available and which is selected), in /etc/make.conf, and in /etc/portage/package.use

If you're using one of the desktop profiles, X and acpi should be enabled by default I think.

Also keep in mind that prefixing a use flag with - disables it, no prefix enables. At first this seemed counter-intuitive to me, comparing with command line conventions. So make sure your make.conf has USE="X acpi ...", not USE="-X -acpi ...".

Maybe you could try adding "--autounmask-write" to emerge's options. It's supposed to automatically unmask any masked packages needed for the emerge job. Maybe it works for use flags too, I'm not sure.

arjend · Post by **arjend** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:08 pm

Thanks! well here it is

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# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /usr/share/portage/config/make.conf.example for a more
# detailed example.
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics" 
VIDEO_CARDS="via"

USE="udev hal X acpi crypt -apm -debug -dell -disk-partition 
-doc -laptop (-selinux)"

Forgot to mention, the -apm -debug, etc are also flags from the error outputs, hal acpi and crypt are the ones I had to add.

Biert · Post by **Biert** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:18 pm

arjend wrote:Thanks! well here it is

Code: Select all

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /usr/share/portage/config/make.conf.example for a more
# detailed example.
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics" 
VIDEO_CARDS="via"

USE="udev hal X acpi crypt -apm -debug -dell -disk-partition 
-doc -laptop (-selinux)"

Forgot to mention, the -apm -debug, etc are also flags from the error outputs, hal acpi and crypt are the ones I had to add.

I don't think parenthesis are allowed in the USE variable, I think that will throw an error and not set USE at all. Try "-selinux" instead. Also, make sure all your use flags are on one line, if you want it to span multiple lines, add a \ before the newline.

When emerge states a use flag in parenthesis, this means the flag in unavailable (just removed, or disabled in the profile or something). It doesn't mean you have to include the parenthesis in your USE variable.

arjend · Post by **arjend** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:24 pm

Biert wrote:It would be useful to know what errors exactly you are getting.

Maybe your use flags are overridden? You should know there are essentially 3 places where use flags can be set: in your profile (type "eselect profile list" to see which are available and which is selected), in /etc/make.conf, and in /etc/portage/package.use

If you're using one of the desktop profiles, X and acpi should be enabled by default I think.

Also keep in mind that prefixing a use flag with - disables it, no prefix enables. At first this seemed counter-intuitive to me, comparing with command line conventions. So make sure your make.conf has USE="X acpi ...", not USE="-X -acpi ...".

Maybe you could try adding "--autounmask-write" to emerge's options. It's supposed to automatically unmask any masked packages needed for the emerge job. Maybe it works for use flags too, I'm not sure.

Thanks Biert,

It is difficult to get the exact error. emerge.log only reports 'exiting unsuccesfully with status 1'.

I selected the desktop profile (not gnome/KDE) during the basesystem installation.

arjend · Post by **arjend** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:29 pm

Biert wrote:
When emerge states a use flag in parenthesis, this means the flag in unavailable (just removed, or disabled in the profile or something). It doesn't mean you have to include the parenthesis in your USE variable.

No differences i'm afraid, changed it in the make.conf

Biert · Post by **Biert** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:50 pm

arjend wrote:
Biert wrote:
When emerge states a use flag in parenthesis, this means the flag in unavailable (just removed, or disabled in the profile or something). It doesn't mean you have to include the parenthesis in your USE variable.
No differences i'm afraid, changed it in the make.conf

Have you run emerge --sync since installation? On my system, the hal useflag is long gone. What is the version of xorg-server you are trying to emerge?

Post by **John R. Graham** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:27 pm

@arjend,

Add the following lines to your /etc/make.conf and the emerge build log will be saved and you can wgetpaste it:

Code: Select all

PORT_LOGDIR=/var/log/portage
PORTAGE_ELOG_CLASSES="info warn error log"
PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save"

I forget whether or not the log directory is created automatically so run

Code: Select all

mkdir -p /var/log/portage

as well.

- John

arjend · Post by **arjend** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:26 am

Thanks John and Biert for the support so far. I used your expertise and now xorg-server is emerging. I used the autounmask function and ran update-etc, emerged again and that seemed to solve the problem for now.

I will keep you posted!