The base system really isn't crippled, it's just the absolute bare minimum. When I'm building a server I definitely don't need a DHCP client and when I'm running ext4 I don't need the XFS filesystem tools. Best of all, Gentoo doesn't force you to have a fucking mail daemon on your system like many other distros seem to do.
First of all, I'm going to assume if you followed the guide that you already have everything you need to connect to a wired network (i.e. either a DHCP client or a statically configured interface).
It appears that you're in luck with wireless. The Atheros 5xxx series has an open-source driver in the kernel. It seems like Atheros is a bit more cooperative than Intel and company when it comes to Linux drivers. Just make sure that the ath5k driver is built, build any encryption modules that you'll need (i.e. TKIP, AES, etc), and you should be good to go. As far as configuring the wireless, wpa_supplicant is my tool of choice. There is a guide here on Gentoo Wiki, but it's not too great:
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Wireless/ConfigurationIt gives some decent information, but the samples given are very situational and, IMO, fairly useless. What's worse is that some of the info that they'll make you believe that you need in your
conf.d/net is actually outdated. I'll summarize what you'll have to do below:
Basically, you'll want to emerge
wireless-tools and
wpa_supplicant. Use
iwconfig to make sure that the interface is there, then edit
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. The following configuration file will automatically connect to your preferred network (assuming it uses WPA encryption) and, if that fails, will connect to any open network:
# This is a network block that connects to a specific unsecured access point.
# We give it a higher priority.
network={
ssid="YOUR_ACCESS_POINT_NAME"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="your_passphrase"
priority=5
}
# This is a network block that connects to any unsecured access point.
# We give it a low priority so any defined blocks are preferred.
network={
key_mgmt=NONE
priority=-9999999
}If you use WEP, the following block would apply to your network:
network={
ssid="YOUR_ACCESS_POINT_NAME"
key_mgmt=NONE
wep_key0=Hexidecimal WEP key goes here
}In your
/etc/conf.d/net file, add the following line:
modules=( "wpa_supplicant" )This tells the system to run wpa_supplicant when it initializes the network.
Finally, you'll need to add a link to your
init.d so that the device can start up. Go into your
/etc/init.d directory and do the following:
ln -s net.lo net.DEVICEReplace DEVICE with whatever iwconfig calls your wireless device (it's usually wlan0, but sometimes that'll change depending on the driver). Afterwards, bring up the interface with
/etc/init.d/net.DEVICE start, cross your fingers, and pull the network cable. Try to ping something and, if it works, make sure that the system brings up the interface at boot:
rc-update add default net.DEVICEIf your wireless is working nicely, you'll want to make sure that the system doesn't drag on startup while it tries to find an address for your wired network card. You can simply disable the service that tries to start it, but there's a much more elegant method:
netplug.
netplug immediately backgrounds
net.eth0 so that it doesn't block the boot process unnecessarily. Additionally, it will also handle calling your DHCP client the moment you plug a cable in and disabling the interface when you unplug it again. Best of all, it couldn't be any easier to get up and running. Just
emerge netplug and that's it. The init scripts will automatically pick it up and use it.
After that, your next step will probably be to install X. Here's the guide on Gentoo.org:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xmlThat gives you a minimal X setup. After you're done with that, you'll probably want to install drivers for your graphics card:
ATI:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ati-faq.xmlnVIDIA:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xmlAnd finally, you'll want to install a desktop environment:
KDE:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/kde/kde4-guide.xmlGnome:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gnome-config.xmlFluxbox:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/fluxbox-config.xmlXfce:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xfce-config.xmlOpenbox:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/openbox.xmlLXDE:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/lxde-howto.xmlKDE and Gnome are the easiest to get up and running, but take the longest (by far) to compile. Xfce is pretty nice and light-weight. I haven't used LXDE, but it looks nice and is supposed to be pretty light. Fluxbox and Openbox are very fast to compile (I'm actually using Fluxbox on my Gentoo system right now as a staging area and as a light-weight X environment for root; I think it took one whole minute to get compiled and installed) but require a lot of digging to get them configured. Additionally, they're probably the only environments that'll still work on a 486, so they're lightning fast.
Most Linux users use either KDE or Gnome.
