Try blacklisting sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl and see if you can get snd_hda_intel to load instead. The one time I tried the sof- driver, I couldn’t get it to work.

As a Gentoo user who still compiles my own kernel for each machine, I say, Arch users have no idea what a distro that really doesn’t hold your hand looks like. (Hell, even Gentoo pales in front of LFS.)

Now you got me curious, so I got up and checked:

2008 HP laptop: Appears to be a standard barrel with no center pin. (Also has yellow trim and is in-line with the cord.)

Circa 2013 HP laptop: Has the connector with the center pin. (Larger than the barrel on the 2008 model, and at right angles to the cord)

So it’s era-dependent (and I used that 2008 model too long). TIL.

Hadn’t heard about those, but a quick search shows those aren’t standard barrel connectors, although they look similar. The Dell connectors have a third pin for data. Normal barrel connectors only have two pins.

For the OP, that means that if your laptop is a Dell from the period where they were doing this, you need a specialized cable and charger intended specifically for Dells.

Depends on the connector. “Kind of fits” and “isnt usb-c” makes me think you might be dealing with the type of barrel plug that’s very common on pre-USB-C non-Macs.

Unfortunately, barrel plugs tell you zilch about the power supply they’re connected to. They’re a dumb connector with no data capability whatsoever, and I’ve seen the same size of plug on power supplies with output anywhere from 3V to 24V. You need to look for the data panel on the old power supply and make sure the new one has the same voltage, the same or larger amperage, and the same polarity.

Polarity on a barrel plug is marked by a symbol that looks like this or this. Make sure the old and new match. Nearly all barrel plug power supplies are center-positive, but better to get it right the first time and avoid any risk of damage to your laptop.

Depends on whether you’re talking about additive or subtractive colour. Yellow is primary in a subtractive system, but not an additive one.

Most of its functionality is just reimplementing things that already existed, with an incompatible interface.

Still works once you can get it to connect, though. The catch is that connecting can take several tries. Probably better to use remmina unless there’s a bug in freerdp that’s causing problems for your use case (rdesktop is, I believe, the only Linux rdp client that uses its own protocol implementation instead of the freerdp library).

I like Aqualung. Works well enough for what I do. Has the slightly unusual feature of accepting LADSPA plugins. I don’t do much tag editing, but the basic functions are there.

I guess at the very least I’ll single out my graphic drivers (Intel)?

You shouldn’t need to concern yourself about this until you’re looking to install X or wayland (at which time you’ll want to put VIDEO_CARDS="intel i915" or similar in make.conf—read the wiki to see which drivers match your specific chipset; my example stanza is for a Kaby Lake system). The basic drivers should autoload unless you compiled a custom kernel and left them out by mistake.

Any advice from people that already use Gentoo? Especially things that they wish they knew before trying for the first time?

This is more things-about-bootloaders I wished I’d known/remembered when installing more recent systems, but:

• If you want to use GPT partitions on a system with legacy BIOS boot, remember that you will need an additional unformatted small partition at the beginning of the disk (this tidbit of information used to be in the handbook, but has been removed)
• If you’re trying to install GRUB on a UEFI system, and it looks like everything should work but the system fails to boot, read the troubleshooting section of the GRUB page in the wiki for information on how to handle defective UEFI implementations.
• Do not try to enable Secure Boot if this is your first rodeo. Get the rest working first.

How much time and effort should I put into fine tuning the global USE flags if my initial goal is to get a system up and running?

Not much, unless there’s something you really want to exclude (-systemd, for instance). Most of the time the default USE flags will give you a workable, feature-rich system (and allow you to use more binary packages).

What you need to pay attention to is your choice of profile, which sets your default USE flags. Profiles in the desktop series enable a lot of USE flags. For the most basic command-line system, you’re better off picking default/linux/amd64/23.0 (or default/linux/amd64/23.0/split-usr if you want the old FHS setup where /bin and /usr/bin etc. are different directories—if you don’t care about this, stick with the default and ignore split-usr). Avoid no-multilib, hardened, and anything marked “(exp)” or “(dev)” unless you have some specific reason for wanting that profile.

With systemd, I enable --nowed that which I wanted to “autostart” (iptables and sshd, for instance). Is there an equally intuitive counterpart with OpenRC?

I think you want the rc-update command, specifically rc-update add [service] default (assuming you want the default runlevel, which you nearly always do). There’s a man page.

regionset’s homepage appears to have disappeared. If your distro no longer packages it, the source can still be obtained from Gentoo source mirrors (pick a server here and go into “distfiles” then “8b”).

Because even a headless server with no email capability can write to a log, as long as it can mount its root drive.

That being said, if your system is hiding stuff behind some kind of splash screen at boot time, turn it off. I suspect your error would have been right there on screen in plain white-on-black text if it had happened on one of my systems (granted, I use OpenRC and not systemd, but I expect the latter also provides a running commentary on what it’s doing at boot until the graphics stack loads).

noauto, which means that the filesystem in question won’t mount until you issue an explicit mount command for it, can be an alternative to nofail in fstab. Back in the days of optical drives, that used to be one of the options you put on them.

For external (and network) drives, though, I find it’s better to hand the problem over to autofs (which will mount the filesystem only when you try to access it) and keep them out of fstab.

You can try just tracking down Akonadi’s executable and removing its executable mark or renaming it, which may, however, break other stuff (in particular, make sure you’re not running kmail—it seems to be the most substantial program with a non-optional dependency). Or you can ditch KDE and move to a lighter DE that doesn’t have this stuff (TDE, Mate, XFCE . . .)

There are two ways to spin up a Linux machine: you can either use a desktop-ready distribution that includes everything you need to use it right away (including some stuff you don’t want), or you can start with the bare bones and build it up to usability. If you want to take the second philosophy to the extreme, Gentoo will let you turn off all optional features you don’t want before they’re even built.

X11 is still being actively maintained. It isn’t an install risk or anything like that. It isn’t going to add any shiny new features, but not everyone needs shiny new features. (That being said, if Wayland works for you, go ahead and use it. Just don’t spread FUD, please.)

Even better, store the password offsite—safe at a friend’s house, safety deposit box at the bank . . .

Sort of. The minimal install image provides a (lightweight command-line) Linux environment, and that’s what you would typically expect to boot into to install. If you have another piece of live media that you prefer, you can use it for the install instead (I’ve used Raspbian and its successor distros as hosts to install Gentoo on Pis from time to time), but there can be occasional gotchas that come from things like different handling of the resolv.conf file on other distros.

Just download the file marked “Minimal Installation CD” from here (assuming you’re installing to an x86_64 system) and mount it as a CD according to the VM’s documentation, then boot the VM.

Do use the Gentoo-provided minimal install iso as the host for the install, and not random live media, just to reduce the possibility of unexpected problems.

The handbook is actually pretty explicit on what commands you need to run for the base install. Read it through first. Take note of the places where you actually have to decide something (the biggest one is OpenRC vs. systemd, and you want to have that decision made before you start). Go with the default for anything you don’t really care about or that looks a bit complicated or scary. Absolutely do not skip steps (unless they’re marked “Optional”) even if you don’t yet understand what the step is for.

Working inside a VM insulates you from some of the worst gotchas you can run into on real hardware (like bad UEFI implementations), fortunately. Still, don’t try to build a custom kernel straight out the gate—just install the distro kernel for now.

If something goes wrong during the install, it can be best to take a break and come back later.

Once you’ve got the base system running, you’ll have another decision to make about X vs wayland and the various DE/WM/compositor options.

Another program you can try that no one has mentioned yet is Scribus. You will need at least version 1.5 to be able to open PDFs properly. Be aware that it is a desktop publishing program (analogous to InDesign if you’re looking at the Adobe family), so there are likely to be differences in the workflow.

(The method of absolute desperation is, of course, to install a Windows VM just to support that one program while you wait for the RFEs you filed against the piece of software that’s closest to being useful for her to be dealt with.)