SMP, livecd problems

[gsiener]

I've got the famous Abit BP6 with two cel 366@550, and it's run stable for over two years, more recently running redhat. I decided to put Gentoo on it finally, and was a little disappointed.

First, I find that the 1.4 release livecd crashes constantly when smp is enabled (this has been verified in other threads). So to get around that I just booted with a normal kernel (and suffered x2 compile times).

Second, gentoo-sources don't work well with smp, so I compile my own kernel from vanilla sources (also verified in other threads).

Third, because I wanted this system up and running, I decided to go with GRP, then recompile my own custom stuff while I had a system up and running. Only problem is that the GRP stuff isn't playing nice and I don't know if there's a dependency problem but emerging Xfree keeps giving seg faults.

Fourth, lm-sensors refused to work properly (ie "sensors" states no sensors found), even though sensors-detect found and set up the proper sensors (and this also worked fine in redhat).

Lastly, I'm having trouble figuring out how to use the 2.6 kenel with this system. This is not a Gentoo problem but my own, just wondering if anyone had a simple guide to JUST installing a 2.6 kernel, and not migrating from 2.4 (e.g. when it's time to first emerge a kernel-source, to just emerge development-sources).
I
I hate to say it, but I've been considering just going with Slackware 9.1. I love Gentoo, and love the idea behind it, but I wish everything just worked a little better.

I'd love to hear any suggestions/comments/experiences you've all had, and if anyone is running a similar system, let me know what specific stuff you changed in make.conf (like the -j3 option and the cflags).

Thanks! I hope I get some good advice!

Graham