Build new system, advice on what to avoid for gentoo install

Cyberman.ff · n00b Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

I was about to build yet another system and again install gentoo. Bleeding edge components seemed to be my primary problem last time.

However THIS time I am going to ask questions first.

I had a few unexpected surprises last time. So I would like to prevent that ... muchly

As I don't have a few weeks of spare time these days. A few days of work is all right.

I have a working system (sort of) now.

Hopefully this doesn't sound too much like rambling

However here are the fun questions
1 I plan on an 8core AM3+ processor any issues with the latest greatest?
2: mother board, I'm considering going with a ASUS this time, kind of was surprised by their MB bios changes. Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AM3+ experience anyone?
3: memory shouldn't be an issue 32G 1866mhz DDR3 (I'll use what the manufacture says works)
4: Any issues with large 4T drives and new installls? WD40EZRX was what I was planning on using.
I noticed Grub 2 is still a pain (LOL) to handle I always seem to get it wrong the first time. How upto date are the docs in comparison to gentoo installation?
I found that was hard to figure out what path too follow to install grub2 et al correctly. What is the path of least pain for the install sequence?
5: video I was looking at Asus Radeon R9 290X with the R9290X I would like to have the 3d functioning this time (with the NVIDIA based card I used last time I never got it working)
The catalyst drivers (14.12) I couldn't find the chipset support for the linux drivers so I'm a bit freaked out. NVIDIA's drivers nearly killed my last system could not get them to install. I'm pretty sure I did something wrong but what I could never figure out and I just kept things as is.
6: standard SATA DVD RW I plan on getting 1 of those and maybe a blue ray later. not a big deal (or shouldn't be at least)

What is the CLEANEST way to install the bootloader? GRUB ... was a bit of a pain GRUB 2 last I used it was a bigger pain (still didn't get it too boot right darn it).

I noticed HP is no longer supporting light scribe, anyone know if the last 'drivers' which are 32bit are it. Anyone here of plans for open sourcing them? I kind of liked light scribe BUT the drivers were kind of 'slugish under windows. Haven't used it in a few years but have disks etc. Anyhow ...

I hope to use some power management abilities in my desktop, should would be quieter

Advice would be appreciated The last system I have still works but as I said the video was always a bit borked and wine whined a lot because of that. It worked but always in software rendering (which could be annoying at 1080P on 2 displays). Thanks in advance I always appreciate prevention of "unexpected results"

Anyhow I want less struggle this time and more developement time (which is what I like to do).

Stephen

WWWW · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 Nov 2014 Posts: 143

EFI bootloader the easiest of them all.

bammbamm808 · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 548 Location: Hawaii

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:37 pm Post subject:

I think there are always surprises when you install a new box with new hardware.

if you buy very new hardware you will have maybe for a few months not the best linux support.

I won t ever buy any amd / ati card again. Issues in windows 7 and linux. but thats a personal note.

hardware wise what i read is nvidia gpus and intel cpus the best for your bucks and less hassle free.

grub 2 works as it should, but when you use windows i have no idea as i gave up windows ages ago, i am one of the few who used vista for 3 days, never windows 7,... 8 ...

it depends on your use case scenario. so you have to consider that in the first place ..

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:57 pm Post subject:

Cyberman.ff,

4: Any issues with large 4T drives and new installls?
No.

WD40EZRX was what I was planning on using.
WD Greens ... don't even think about it.
The reliability is poor and green==slow.
All that shiney new hardware cries out for a SSD, even if /home is on rotating rust.

I would use grub-legacy os a boot loader, or UEFI with no boot loader.
The kernel can be built as a UEFI compliant program
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

I've got a 1TB WD Green. It *is* slow, but as long as you remember to set the "green idle mode" timeout to something sane (30 seconds instead of the default 8, IIRC hdparm has a switch specially for this) there shouldn't be a reliability problem. I've been using this one for 5½ years now...

grot · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2014 Posts: 33

EFI 'is usually' really easy. However, on my ASUS laptop, I had an issue where efibootmgr could never read the efivars/efivarfs. I tried installing from boot media from various distros - I could list the vars, but efibootmgr could never see them. (grub2 implements efibootmgr). Oh, and every Gummiboot menu freezes if you press a button - but the default selection will load (luckily for Arch)

I ended up installing void linux, then booting that and installing gentoo on a different partition. Aside from that, this notebook has great EFI support, so I imagine most ASUS's do. Apparently some systems can "only" boot from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi, but this one has a little file browser that lets me select any .efi from any EFI-partition labeled disk. (point being, look into how well your mobo brand supports efi. my particular asus mobo has incredible efi support - except for that one glitch)

Funtoo does stuff with optimizing for specific processor architectures. If you really want to optimize, I would look there.

I would strongly recommend getting an SSD. I have one from crucial which is designed for better data recovery. Compile/boot/suspend/launch times can literally be 5x faster. Ofc, I don't know what your data needs are.. but I'm a heavy data user, with a crummy internet connection, and I would still take a (highly-rated-on-newegg) 128 GB SSD over a 4TB drive.. Although I copy/paste/delete/compile/clear my development database constantly, and not having to wait for commands to finish executing has just been a huge relief in my life.

Cyberman.ff · n00b Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Posts: 10

I apologize I have been "detained" lately.
Thanks I've noticed the offering in terms of performance package related things from AMD has continuously regressed.

UEFI I hadn't thought of because I have always used a bootloader.
Direct booting does have its advantages and I am not dual booting so that is a non issue. I could fix this systems boot oddness if I do that as well.
I have been looking over Sakaki's list in the wiki so that should help. I wish I had realized I could do that last year (when I was installing a different persons system). Duh. Heck I started with LILO so I suppose that about sums up things (eons ago).

Anyhow Hmmm ATI/AMD hardware support is too bad. Not sure what is up with that however I'm not in their shoes and I don't know how they manage things.

Hard drive wise not sure how much hard drive hashing I'll have with 32G of memory. Of course if I run gnome for the Windown manager that would be a different matter. (mutter) Anyhow perhaps I found the seagate 1,5 STA ones I had were not terribly power efficient and lastly they didn't seem to be reliable compared too all the WD green's I've been using the last 8 years. Hence why not 2 greens? 1 green unit with adjusted settings and higher performance drive might do the trick.
I appreciate you taking the time to give some insite.