Gentoo On MacBook Pro Retina Part 2: Gnome 3

TODO

This is a draft article but may be somebody will find it useful.
I was able to get at least running Gnome 3 without visual defects.
Actually there should be performed much more work to get it work better.

My TODO list includes:
– tune touchpad!!!
– better power management
– media keys
– auto dim keyboard light
– auto dim screen light
– hdmi, hdmi audio
– test all peripheral ports
– test stereo mic
– test sound quality
– test audio port to work with apple headset (audio + mic)
– sleep, hibernate
– test mouse device
– test bluetooth
– test wireless

Configure portage

Firstly we need to let portage know details about video card and input devices and that we also would like to build all future packages with support of X server.

nano /etc/portage/make.conf

USE="... X ..."
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev mtrack"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel"

Configure kernel

Run genkernel all --menuconfig to fix kernel settings and rebuild kernel.

Sometimes genkernel all --menuconfig --no-clean could save a lot of time if you already have compiled kernel and just would like to enable a few modules.

Device Drivers --->
    Input device support --->
        <*>  Event interface
    Graphics support --->
        <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)  --->
            <*>   Intel 8xx/9xx/G3x/G4x/HD Graphics
            [*]     Enable modesetting on intel by default

Configure X

The config below will allow you to run X server and Gnome 3 on MacBook Pro Retina.

The config below have:
– touchpad configuration (still not perfect)
– english/russian keyboard
– ctrl+alt+bksp enabled to kill X server
– 286 179 is the screen size (in mm) for 13 inch screen, for 15 inch screen please use 366 203. Calculation is very simple: (2880 / 200 * 25.4) (1800 / 200 * 25.4), where 2880×1800 is resolutions, 200 is density in pixels per inch, 1 inch = 25.4 mm
– 2560x1600 is the screen resolution for 13 inch screen, for 15 inch screen please use 2880x1800

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

#Section "InputDevice"
#    Identifier "Mouse0"
#    Driver "mouse"
#    Option "Protocol"
#    Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
#    Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
#    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
#EndSection

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "Touchpad0"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    Driver "mtrack"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Keyboard0"
    #MatchIsKeyboard "on"
    #Driver "kbd"
    Driver "evdev"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
    Option "XkbModel" "Apple MacBook Keyboard"
    Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp:switch,grp_led:scroll,compose:rwin,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
    Option "XkbVariant" ",qwerty"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "Monitor0"
    DisplaySize 286 179
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver "intel"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device "Device0"
    Monitor "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "2560x1600"
    EndSubSection
    Option "PreferredMode" "2560x1600"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "Layout0"
    Screen 0 "Screen0"
    InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    #InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    #InputDevice "Touchpad0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Emerge X server and related drivers:

emerge x11-base/xorg-server x11-base/xorg-drivers

We need to temporary merge twm, xterm, xclock without writing into world to test it if we configure it well.

emerge twm xterm xclock -1

Test xorg server:

startx

If everything is well then you should be able to see twm window manager, xterm and xclock (very small).

To terminate X session login over ssh and kill xorg server (if ctrl+alt+bksp doesn’t work):

pkill X

twm xterm xclock will be removed on next emerge --depclean

Good now we should have working x server.

Rebuild world

We are targeting to systemd/gnome 3 based system so we need to switch gentoo profile to simplify configuration.

eselect profile list
eselect profile set default/linux/amd64/13.0/desktop/gnome/systemd

Rebuild world:

emerge --deep --update --newuse world

Install Gnome

emerge gnome 

In my case I have to change some use flags to merge Gnome:

nano /etc/portage/package.use/gnome

>=media-plugins/grilo-plugins-0.2.14 upnp-av
>=gnome-base/gnome-control-center-3.16.3 networkmanager
>=www-servers/apache-2.2.31 apache2_mpms_prefork

Add user

If you didn’t add user previously then add it now.

Add new admin user

useradd -G adm -m username

Set password for user:

passwd username

Or make account passwordless:

passwd -d username

Activate Gnome

We need to switch to gnome X session:

echo XSESSION="Gnome" > /etc/env.d/90xsession
env-update && source /etc/profile

Then test if it works:

startx

You should see Gnome desktop.

Exit from Gnome.

Now if everything is good we could add Gnome to auto start:

systemctl enable gdm

Reboot and you will get automatic prompt for username and password and will be able to log into gnome desktop environment.