Backstory: Gentoo insists on booting up in a resolution of 1024×768 on the iMac, and then sets the console dimensions to 128×48, which leads to a font that is just a little too small for me to read comfortably on this screen. So I spent a lot of time trying to set the resolution to 800×600, hoping that this would lead to a larger font. Under OS X, that resolution works fine, but under Gentoo, the machine refuses to recognize it. Or rather, it ignores video settings that I pass, or the screen goes blank and the computer seems to hang. Pretty weird. At some point I even tracked down the driver in the kernel source, changed it to boot into 800×600, recompiled and reinstalled… which had the same effect as manually setting the resolution, i.e. the computer hangs.

So eventually I started looking for larger console fonts. There aren’t many… there’s the Sigma font, and Terminus… I am using that last one now, and I don’t like it too much, but at least I can read what I’m writing. :-) Fortunately, the sources of both fonts are available, which means I can change them to my liking, or create my own font (eventually). ^_^

Other than that, Gentoo works great on the iMac. Network worked right out of the box, which is essential as many packages can be downloaded using emerge.

Well, back to my hacking configuration hell… :-)