This HOWTO assumes you already have a working 2.6.x kernel and that you have recently done an "emerge sync". It also assumes that you are comfortable rolling your own kernels, and are comfortable manipulating the gentoo init system with rc-update.

NOTE: Do this at your OWN risk however, it works fine on my system.

NOTE: You should sync and emerge the latest stable baselayout (As of Match 18, the version is 1.8.6.13)

Why should I disable devfs?

- devfs is being phased out in the new 2.6.x kernels in favour of sysfs.

- devfs support has already been hacked in 2.6.x up and parts of it have been removed.

- devfs caused instabilities on my machine with regards to framebuffer, and also messed up lm_sensors. disabling devfs resolved all the problems I had with both of these.

- because you can

Instructions

1. recompile your kernel without devfs support. In menuconfig:
Code:
File Systems | Pseudo Filesystems
[ ] /dev file system support (OBSOLETE)
2. add the following to your kernel line (in grub) or your append= line in lilo:
Code:
devfs=nomount
3. if you have an nvidia card, add "nvidia" to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

4. change your mouse device in /etc/X11/XF86Config to /dev/input/mouse0 (or mouse1 - depending on hardware - i have to use mouse1 as I have 2 mouse devices)

5. emerge udev (sysfsutils is a dependancy)
Code:
 emerge udev
6. if you do not already have hotplug, emerge it and add it to the boot runlevel:
Code:
emerge hotplug
rc-update add hotplug boot
if you already have it installed then:
Code:
rc-update del hotplug && rc-update add hotplug boot
7. add the following to your /etc/fstab (if it is not already) :
Code:
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
8. reboot

edit - March 9 : fixed typo where I originally had hotplug added to the default runlevel in step 6 - should have been the boot runlevel. Made the how-to easier to read - reformatted it.