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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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 Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 1:37 pm Post subject: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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Greetings.
I'm an Ubuntu orphan whose found his way to Gentoo. What can I say? The latest Ubuntu release left me pretty disappointed in regard to memory management. It's becoming just as piggish as XP these days - resource wise. I was right back to the old familiar 'reboot often' to clear memory scenario. After a couple weeks of this I'd had enough!
I'd had my eye on Gentoo for some time now, but never tried it until last week. I installed it on my spare machine, and after a few days of trying it out I decided to switch my main workstation over.
Other than the fact I cannot get my ATI card to configure properly (no Compiz for me), I'm still VERY happy. I'd read how lightweight Gentoo was but didn't believe it until now. A fresh boot sees the entire OS living in 70MB of memory. And Snappy! Holy cow! I've never see this old machine run so fast.
Big hat tip to the installation documentation writers!! Even though the install can take days, I walked away feeling like I actually learned something more than just 'insert CD' 
Oh, and the forums were very helpful too. Always good to see a great community helping each other out.
I think I'm home... |
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gerard82
Veteran
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 1926
Location: Netherlands
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| Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome Home StarLab.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has Firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download |
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Shining Arcanine
Veteran
Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 1110
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| Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 2:47 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| Welcome to Gentoo Linux. Post a thread describing your ATI card issues in the Desktop Environment forum and I am sure that there will be people happy to help you. |
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kernelOfTruth
Watchman
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 5345
Location: Vienna, Austria; Germany; hello world :)
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 3:27 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| Shining Arcanine wrote: | | Welcome to Gentoo Linux. Post a thread describing your ATI card issues in the Desktop Environment forum and I am sure that there will be people happy to help you. |
Thanks... Working toward that. Again, not a huge issue for me. I don't game on this machine and can live without the desktop effects. Still, it's the only outstanding issue I have and would be nice to get everything working 100%.
Till then, still happy. |
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d2_racing
Moderator
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 12867
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome StarLab 
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Kollin
l33t
Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 951
Location: Sofia/Bulgaria
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 7:59 am Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| StarLab wrote: | ...Holy cow! I've never see this old machine run so fast. ...
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Yeah!
Everyone tells you that you need a powerful machine to run Gentoo (because of the compilations) but you can really appreciate it only on old hardware 
P.S. Welcome sweetie 
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krinn
Advocate
Joined: 02 May 2003
Posts: 3204
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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Ok, that's just funny! My real name is Larry. I'm not much of a cow though... I weigh in at 180lbs.
Although, I do exhibit the 'dull, empty stare of a dairy cow' first thing in the morning. |
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Naib
Advocate
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 3891
Location: UK - Birmingham
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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yup it is great
its a kinda seesaw this distro. atm it seems to be getting better
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| Quote: | | Voting holds no real power, he who counts the votes has the true power. |
Weaver Projects
whats the difference between 9/11 and a cow?
u stop milking a cow after 10 years |
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 12:36 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| Kollin wrote: | | StarLab wrote: | ...Holy cow! I've never see this old machine run so fast. ...
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Yeah!
Everyone tells you that you need a powerful machine to run Gentoo (because of the compilations) but you can really appreciate it only on old hardware
P.S. Welcome sweetie |
I have a P4 2.0Ghz with 512RAM as my workstation. I also have Gentoo installed on a P4 1.6Ghz and am using that as my local web server. Both installs run beautifully on those machine.
Gentoo is actually more responsive on these machines than W7 on my duo core. lol
Thanks for the warm welcome! (Everyone...) |
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gregool
Guru
Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 329
Location: Lille
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| one of my laptops has a Pentium M 1,5Ghz and gentoo is running just fine |
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devilheart
l33t
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 760
Location: san leonardo del friuli
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 8:01 am Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| StarLab wrote: | | I'm an Ubuntu orphan whose found his way to Gentoo. What can I say? The latest Ubuntu release left me pretty disappointed in regard to memory management. It's becoming just as piggish as XP these days - resource wise. I was right back to the old familiar 'reboot often' to clear memory scenario. After a couple weeks of this I'd had enough! |
may I ask you how much ram do you have? |
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 11:15 am Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| devilheart wrote: | | StarLab wrote: | | I'm an Ubuntu orphan whose found his way to Gentoo. What can I say? The latest Ubuntu release left me pretty disappointed in regard to memory management. It's becoming just as piggish as XP these days - resource wise. I was right back to the old familiar 'reboot often' to clear memory scenario. After a couple weeks of this I'd had enough! |
may I ask you how much ram do you have? |
A mere 512MB. More than enough for my workstation under Gentoo.
Actually, I have 2 machines with 512MB running Gentoo now. My main 2.0Ghz and my local web server at 1.6Ghz. Both purr along quite nicely. |
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Randy Andy
l33t
Joined: 19 Jun 2007
Posts: 699
Location: /dev/koelsch
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Welcome at home, StarLab.
Good to see that someone converts without much hussle from Ubuntu to Gentoo, and find so fast some of lots of the advantages of Gentoo.
I tried / compared about 30 other distros, before i came to Gentoo
I'm sure, as longer as you use it, as lesser you would convert to any other distro, if you feel a little like me.
In the meantime all of my 5 machines are running gentoo only, starting from a amd k6-2 400Mhz with 128Mb RAM up to a Intel Quad-Core with 8GB RAM.
My experiance is, as lower the power of your machine is, as more you feel the difference compared to other distros on the same machine (execpt the installation time of course)
Nice to see you.
Best regards, Andy.
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Randy Andy wrote: | Welcome at home, StarLab.
Good to see that someone converts without much hussle from Ubuntu to Gentoo, and find so fast some of lots of the advantages of Gentoo.
I tried / compared about 30 other distros, before i came to Gentoo
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Biggest hassle was waiting 2 days before using my Workstation again. The time investment for compiling is well worth the effort when you see the end result.
30 Distros? Thankfully I landed on Gentoo my second time around. lol |
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devilheart
l33t
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 760
Location: san leonardo del friuli
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 3:02 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| StarLab wrote: | | A mere 512MB. More than enough for my workstation under Gentoo. |
ok, you are excused |
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StarLab
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2010
Posts: 17
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: A Big WhooHoo to Gentoo! |
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| devilheart wrote: | | StarLab wrote: | | A mere 512MB. More than enough for my workstation under Gentoo. |
ok, you are excused |
Speaking of excuses... Linux is perfect for extending deadlines. All I have to do is start techno-babbling to my boss about how I had to Kernel this, or compile that, then I get to watch his eyes glaze over as he walks away.
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Thanks Gentoo! I actually like my Computer(s) again! |
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erik258
Advocate
Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 2648
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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I wish I could use that as an excuse at work. I guess I'm a little too deep into the sysadmin field to say I got held up administering to my systems.
I've run gentoo on all sorts of things, including a Pentium MMX with 96MB of memory. The thing runs surprisingly well! I'd try to put it on a 386 but I don't have any 386es that work anymore. Maybe I should try to get it on that 8086 with a 386 add-on board in my basement ... surely it would be the oldest machine ever to run gentoo!
Anyhow, the real trick for old systems is to compile on different machines. you can use distcc + crossdev, but it probably makes more sense to set up a little x86 chroot on a nice fast multi-core modern system and then use the --root argument to portage to install the packages into the real base of the install for the old system - this could be and nfs-mounted root filestystem, or it could be a hard drive that was removed from the old system and plugged into the new. The nice thing about doing it the nfs way is that you can strip GCC from the system and to all the portage maintenance on the fast machine. Just something I figured I'd share.
That's whats so great about gentoo - it's so very flexible. It never gets in the way - ok, hardly never. There was the libpng-1.4 thing recently ; )
Again, welcome, and glad to have you with us.
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BradN
Advocate
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 2270
Location: Wisconsin (USA)
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Gentoo on i386/32MB: I gave up after a couple weeks. It did work, but it's getting harder to do 386 since some stuff is starting to require 486 for the cmpxchg instruction for thread synchronization. Back then there was still a 386 stage 1 image. |
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likewhoa
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2006
Posts: 695
Location: Brooklyn, New York
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| woohooo to you too |
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dE_logics
Veteran
Joined: 02 Jan 2009
Posts: 1848
Location: $TERM
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| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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Yup, should make a thread about that ATI issue
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mmealman
Guru
Joined: 02 Nov 2002
Posts: 348
Location: Florida
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| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| erik258 wrote: |
Anyhow, the real trick for old systems is to compile on different machines. you can use distcc + crossdev, but it probably makes more sense to set up a little x86 chroot on a nice fast multi-core modern system |
Yeah, it may make more sense, but then you won't be able to brag to the cute chick at the bar how you compiled Xorg on a cluster of EC2 servers so it'd only take 5 mins to get your netbook up and running! |
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joaopft
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 20 Oct 2003
Posts: 82
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject: Build times and hardware |
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These days, most desktops and laptops are fast enough for compilation. Even openoffice builds in about one hour on a Q6600 Quad Cores, on Core i5's or on Phenom X4's. An older laptop of mine with one of the first Conroe processors compiles openoffice in three hours. You surely don't need a $500 processor to get reasonable build times.
Only netbooks and Atom desktops are notoriously slow compilers. You can build binary packages for these in another system, though.
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joaopft
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 20 Oct 2003
Posts: 82
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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An x86 chroot is the way to go with netbooks  . It is easy to do and is the fastest solution, way better than distcc. The configure phase of make takes a lot of time on a netbook, and it is also chokes when handling distcc tasks.
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