Udev

Configuring hardware - udev

After trying on a few occasions to do this myself, I was forced to finally commit with the release of xfce 4.8. The steps here are based on the instructions outlined by ssuominen on the gentoo forums and with contributions from others in the gentoo community. First, make the necessary modifications to your /etc/make.conf.

$ sudo nano -w /etc/make.conf

Ensure the following USE flags are set:

USE="-hal consolekit dbus pam policykit udev" 

Next we will make some modifications to /etc/portage/package.use .

$ sudo nano -w /etc/portage/package.use

Ensure the following directives are set. You may also want to ensure the hal USE flag is removed if you've added it to any package in the file.

gnome-base/gvfs gdu
sys-block/parted device-mapper 

Next we will mask hal so it doesn't get pulled in by other packages.

$ sudo nano -w /etc/portage/package.mask

Add the line

sys-apps/hal

Next you will want to perform the following emerge.

$ sudo emerge -av gnome-base/gvfs sys-fs/udisks sys-power/upower sys-auth/polkit polkit-gnome 

Next, start the daemons needed to complete the migration and add them to startup.

$ sudo rc-update add dbus default
$ sudo rc-update add consolekit default
$ sudo /etc/init.d/consolekit start 

This should be sufficient for now.

Troubleshooting

If later on your devices aren't mounting properly, issue the command

$ ck-list-sessions

If you have configured your kernel correctly, you should see something like this:

Session2:
	unix-user = '1000'
	realname = '(null)'
	seat = 'Seat1'
	session-type = ''
	active = TRUE
	x11-display = ':0.0'
	x11-display-device = '/dev/tty7'
	display-device = ''
	remote-host-name = ''
	is-local = TRUE
	on-since = '2011-03-14T05:50:56.403353Z'
	login-session-id = '1'
Session1:
	unix-user = '1000'
	realname = '(null)'
	seat = 'Seat2'
	session-type = ''
	active = FALSE
	x11-display = ':0.0'
	x11-display-device = ''
	display-device = ''
	remote-host-name = ''
	is-local = TRUE
	on-since = '2011-03-14T05:50:56.177323Z'
	login-session-id = '1'

If you see something similar to the above, you're in business. The key item is the active line.