Compile this and compile that

Supermule · Guru Joined: 05 Mar 2003 Posts: 510 Location: /denmark/fyn

Hi,

Just a quick question: Do you actually use your Gentoo boxes in production? Or just everyday? My point (And why I havent been able to use Gentoo on mymain Desktop yet):

Compile. I really hate to spend so much compile time. Sure I could compile over night, but often the compilation fails for some little reason, leaving the Box unusable the next day

I know that for some ppl the compiling and stuff is what makes Gentoo so great, but for me its the Forum and portage that makes Gentoo great. and I really really miss precompiled packages. If I wanna update XFree og KDE I wanna update it now...not spend 2 days compiling the sucker

- Leaving my Box unusable in that timeperiod.

How do you guys handle this problem? Surely you have som issues like this as well??

Thx,
_________________
regards,
Supermule

Wedge_ · Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003 10:25 pm Post subject:

It doesn't really bother me. On a 2.6 kernel, it's quite possible to leave a compile going in the background and hardly notice it's running. The biggest packages I ever need to compile are X and Firebird, neither of which takes more than a couple of hours (I've never timed them so I don't know exactly). I suppose if you're using KDE it may take slightly longer (

), but I don't use it.
_________________
Per Ardua Ad Astra
The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but we cannot live forever in a cradle - Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky
Gentoo Radeon FAQ

akvik · Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2003 10:38 pm Post subject:

Same here, the 2.6 kernel is GREAT in resource handling. Have been working in openoffice the whole day with KDE compiling in the background.

jaska · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:19 am Post subject:

I'm too much of a paranoid to try out kernel-2.6 yet :/ Should probably sooner or later since I hear about quite a few improvements. Just not ready to burst a production workstation because school requires a lot of typed papers and I dont have a backup.

Lovechild · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:22 am Post subject:

I only have my Desktop and my laptop to work with - and I use both - distcc helps with the compile times though.

asimon · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:47 am Post subject:

If you do office stuff it's fine to compile in the background, it doesn't disturb then. But if you have to do work which uses much cpu time (for example a lot of heavy benchmarking like I have to do from time to time etc.) Gentoo is IMO inappropriate.

jeffbuttars · Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:25 pm Post subject: play nice

When I want utilize my CPUs for something else while emerging I just nice it and it works great.

nice emerge something

This will cause emerge to run with a lower priority and surrender the CPU to most other tasks.

Reformist · Guru Joined: 06 Oct 2002 Posts: 323

Good idea with that nice. I suppose that would work great when you don't have a network available to load the compilation onto (distcc!!).
_________________
-Phil Crosby

Malakin · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:35 am Post subject:

I use Gentoo on my own desktop but to avoid having to compile and the problems that come along with this I use Debian on any production systems.

jeffbuttars · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:13 pm Post subject:

I found that staying within the stable package branch helps things to compile with far less problems than the unstable branch. So compile and leave works most( 90%+) of the time.
Usually when I update I'm at the machine so I've aliased emerge to nice emerge so that it always poses the least amount of interference with my current work. I also must admit I built the machine to run Gentoo and opted for an SMP system. If this is ever an option for you take it, makes a huge difference while emerging. Things emerge faster as well as having plenty of CPU to go around for other processes.
Another thing I like do is ssh into my home machine when I'm at school or work and emerge while I'm not home yet I can still monitor it for problems.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

I have a Slot-A Athlon 600MHz, so I don't emerge huge apps all the time. I only emerge them when I think I'll really benefit from it, not just because its available. I try to emerge them Sunday night, so they have the night and most of the day monday to crunch (minimizing the amount of time I'm using a system while emerging). Medium sized apps I'll emerge overnight.

Moved from Other Things Gentoo.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo?

ed0n · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:55 pm Post subject:

Yeah I also use gentoo on my main desktop. And I compile everyday I let it compile packages in background and I do normal work.I can compile and even play ut2003 with high resolution and with many processes started like gnome-session does.

monotux · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:04 pm Post subject:

The compiling time is one thing: once you have compiled the most important things, lika xfree, gnome and openoffice you can use gentoo as a desktop, even if you are compiling while surfing the net or writing in OO.
(that is, of course, if you have configured your kernel right) :-)

I have my box running 24/7 - not as a server, but as a desktop. I do my heaviest compiling during days (when I'm sleeping in school) and nights (errhh...when I sleep...) - but when I come home, everything is (usually) complete, and I can play ET or whatsoever :-)

_________________
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

Oopsz · Guru Joined: 08 Oct 2002 Posts: 340

i just su screen nice emerge on my server, then ^A^D and check it next time i'm online, along with any service restarts.. not had any problems.
_________________
Pop-before-SMTP with the Gentoo Virtual Mailhosting Guide

Moled · l33t Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 635

TPC · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 1:44 am Post subject:

hm...
I don't think I have the latest version of make.conf
I guess I messed up an etc-update

what do I need to re-emerge to get the latest version?

zhenlin · Veteran Joined: 09 Nov 2002 Posts: 1361

emerge portage

odegard · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 11:19 am Post subject:

Tip, if you use -03 compiler flag, don't. I just reinstalled and decided I'd rather have 3% more stability than 3% more speed (if any) and BOY did it compile MUCH faster!! It took less than 3 hours to bootstrap and emerge system. I let my computer emerge xfree86, xfce4, latex, kile, xmms, krusader, xchat, gaim before I went to bed and *cough* 10 *cough* hours later it was finished for I don't know how long...

I will never go back to -03, it's just not worth it.

Yeah, and using nice is great, I do it all the time. I'm on a 2.4.22 kernel and I compile in the background on a 1250mhz athlon-xp with 512mb ram.