Upgrading to new processor architecture

[Darth_Daver]

I am currently running Gentoo 1.2 on a 800 MHz Pentium 3. I am getting ready to replace my 30 GB hard drive with a 80 GB HD so a new Gentoo installation is imminent. I may wait for 1.4 final to be released. I am also seriously considering building a 2.53 GHz P4. My current desktop would then work its way through the food chain as a new Linux server, and my oldest server (Pentium 200, Red Hat 6.2) would be retired.

Here is my question. If I install Gentoo on my P3 with all the optimizations and then move that 80 GB hard drive into a new P4 system, how easy is it to recompile everything to take advantage of the new processor architecture optimizations including the gcc 3.2 SSE2 optimizations? Is it as easy as running emerge with some command line option? Am I better off building this new system before installing to this new drive or just doing a clean reinstall after I build the new system? How painful would the upgrade be? Are the processor improvements even worth the recompilation?

I'm torn about building the new system. My current desktop is so blazingly fast since I moved to Gentoo that I question the need to build a faster one. That old Pentium server is chugging along fine too. On the other hand, the retail UT 2003 may run slower than the demo does, and that Pentium server is so old the hardware may fail when I can least afford it. I'm upgrading another one of my Red Hat servers in conjunction so this all impacts where the new and old hardware will go. Timing a new desktop plays a big role in all of this. Remember, prices will also drop a lot between now and January.

Thanks...

[Darth_Daver]

I dug around in some other forums after this post. It sounds like I would just need to modify my USE settings to match my new processor architecture and then run "emerge -e world". I figured it was something like that.

It sounds like some people have concerns about doing an emerge -e world because they have seen it fail and leave a system in a state of disrepair. I'm sure it also would take me days to compile, and one little mistake could lead to disaster. Hopefully we will reach the point in the near future where this can be done without anxiety.

I think I am going to go ahead and build my new system. It should be worth it just for UT 2003, improved performance on my servers, and easier migration.

[nemo_]

some people might have had issues with emerge -e world but I just wanted to let you know I ran thru it several times without any problems (having a look at all the new config files can be long tho).

also it should not take that long, unless you've installed an insane load of packages (one long night could do it - depends on what you have).