xorg 7.4 questions

[doug at safeport.com]

I have been trying to get xorg 7.4 first going and then updated. I have some 
general questions. First using xdm it takes from 3-5 minutes to start. Second, 
using hal and dbus even starting is an adventure. Once it started in well under 
a minute but mostly it just locks up. In reading Xorg.0.log and xdm.log, I see 
no errors. Is my time-to-start out of line?

Using hal and dbus was working fine until I attempted updating xorg using 
portmaster, trying 'portmaster -n -PP xorg'. This gave me a list that seemed 
reasonable so I tried it for real, getting an error about finding an archive 
that I did not understand and the man page did not address. So I installed 
portupgrade and the 'hal dbus' version of xdm stopped working. I view this as 
coincidence but switching back to not using hal and dbus and using the ati 
driver (rather than radeon) works.

As it appears that kde4 depends on having xorg updated, I am kind of stuck. Is 
the time-to-start an indication that I have a basic hardware issue and all my 
other symptoms derive that that? My last question is does kde4 require hal or 
dbus to be activiated?

Doug

_____
Douglas Denault
http://www.safeport.com
doug at safeport.com
Voice: 301-217-9220
   Fax: 301-217-9277