Just few issues left for a full complete Gnome-Arch :D.

Question

This is the first time with arch, actually i did try earlier, but could never get it to boot. Never figured out how to handle a seperate /boot. This time everything in single "/". I am using thinkpad T61, with nvidia quadro 140NVS, T9300, intel 4635 agn.
I have done a lot of reading, wikis and forums in last 2 weeks, that all this information is confusing me now. So i resort to forums for opinions and best practises. As of now, i have my sound, multimedia working, nvidia, xorg and compiz working.
1. I am using alsa+gstreamer and also xine-libs. From what i learned from blogs/forums/wikis that OSSv4 is better than alsa, its quality and loudness is both higher, because it uses better mathematical calculations. Xine-lib is better than gstreamer. I installed OSSv4, cudnt get it to work, a loud continous beep on first reboot came, nothing came up, X hanged. After a hard reboot, it booted to gnome, without the beep. Removed OSS and installed ALSA.
I after lot of trying thought of following ubuntu on this, majorly as those guys put lot of effort and money in developing a superior user desktop, so i thought better to use what they do. Instatted alsa-gstreamer-good/bad. Banshee is working, all the media is working and skype is working.
Is OSSv4 that superior, will it be worth few more hours of effort.?
And shall i ditch xine altogether if multimedia is working good?
Do i need pulse-audio?
2. Synaptic installed, touchpad scroll works, but tapping is not working. The wiki guides to config /etc/xorg.conf. But there is not file called xorg.conf on my machine. I used find and locate to look for it, nothing. I do have  /etc/xorg.conf.d/ .. and then nvidia, synaptic ... in it. I have installed evdev, it say hotpluging support. Usb flash drive is working but card reader is not working. Althought in /etc/rc.conf MOD_AUTOLOAD is set to yes. How do i get the card reader working?
3. How can i make the windows close buttons like minimize, maximize and close to come on left-side than right. I tired to install equinox (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=35808), no such package in pacman. Well pacman doesnot have any gtk2 package too, which is required by equinox and murrine(http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=25649). Any hints how to install these or is their anyother way i can get the buttons on the left side of the top border?
/*presently i am using Elegant Gnome Pack (http://arch-stuff.org/content/show.php/ … ent=127826)*/
4. ntfs-3g is installed /etc/fstab has the following lines
/dev/sda1 /mnt/C ntfs-3g rw,user,fmask=0111,dmask=0000 0 0
/dev/sda5 /mnt/D vfat rw,user,fmask=0111,dmask=0000 0 0
/dev/sda5 automatically mounts to /mnt/D but /dev/sda1 doesnot automatically mounts. It does mounts on clicking the auto-detected drive icon in nautilus and giving root password, then it also shows up at /mnt/C. Yes C is ntfs windows-7, and D is fat32.
5. Is there a way to record the messages that the terminal shows while booting UP. Before i installed OSS there were nevery any error/ failure messages. But after i installed (althought removed now) there are a few messages which says error, and before i can make anything out, it just goes to gnome. gnome is user-authenticated, where i dont see gdm, i straight get the desktop
6. Even on logout, i dont see the GDM, like in ubuntu or others. Which means if i have to switch user i will have to install and use switch user applet. Is there a way on the first boot, i straight-away get a gnome desktop, but on the second or subsequent logouts, i get a GDM and then i have to give username and password for the session.
7. How to get a splash screen in grub, the standard grub which comes with the iso downloaded.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Answer 1

Inxsible wrote:
cubeist wrote:
Re: #6
Getting to know pacman as a new user is time well spent.  There is a great wiki, but also 'man pacman' will display all the options available.
To check if you have a package like GDM installed type pacman -Qs gdm or pacman-Ss gdm
while pacman -Qs gdm does show you whether gdm is installed or not, pacman -Ss gdm will simply search the repos for the package not your system.
yes, if you use pacman -Ss gdm it will search repos, but will also tell you if you have it installed locally with the brackets to the right of the program, like so:
pacman -Ss gdm
extra/gdm 2.30.4-2 (gnome-extra) [installed]
I should have been more clear.  It's usefull sometimes to use both, incase you manually(or accidentally) deleted dependencies for example, they won't show up in Qs but Ss they will
Edited ---
On another topic.... since I already got in trouble for making a second post...
ngoonee wrote:@cubeist, while your assistance is well-appreciated, perhaps the 'edit' button would be more useful next time .
why?
20 mins after my first post I had a second train of thought that was slightly different from my first post?  My understanding of "edit" is to alter the context of what is already written.  But if I am violating forum rules of some sort, I apologize.
Last edited by cubeist (2010-08-16 00:14:52)