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OS Newbie
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Joined: 26 Aug 2014
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 Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: | | OS Newbie wrote: | | Jaglover wrote: | May I ask a personal question?
Dear OS Newbie, how old are you? Over 65? No need to answer if you do not feel like you want to. |
Well, I don't feel self conscious about the age I've reached (59). But why do you ask? |
By way of intro...
I hit 59 in a few weeks, and will shortly be assembling and installing my "birthday computer". I'm in the Burlington, Vt, area, though my daughter's best childhood friend moved to Portland, Or. a number of years ago. My daughter has been there a few times, never for me. I've watched "Portlandia" a few times, but it has a serious tendency to send me screaming from the room. [I've avoided watching Portlandia, for that very reason, even though my wife has recommended it to me.]
My first computer was a CoCo, purchased in 1981 and continually upgraded until 64k, expansion port, dual floppies, serial adapter, running OS/9 - a Unix-alike. After that I got into the PC world running DOS, ran Windows the bare minimum, and ran OS/2 for a number of years. [My first computer was an Altair 8800 kit. After that, I got fairly serious about homebrewing hardware, but still cannibalized things from kits by Pickles & Trout, Processor Technology, Cromemco, Godbout, Vector Graphic, etc. I resisted the PC-compatible world (preferring the Digital Research Concurrent DOS environment) until I got into using Novell LANs in the mid/late '80s.]
As OS/2 was losing what viability it had, I moved to RedHat, trying a friend's RH4.0 (way pre-Enterprise) back when it was brand new, I forget the year. I got RedHat 4.1 from CheapBytes and ran that way through RedHat 7.2. When RedHat 8 came out without the ".0" at the end I felt some fear, and began casting about for a new distribution. Within the year I found my way to Gentoo, and have never looked back... (At least until last November with systemd, but that seems to be thankfully behind us.) I started using Gentoo between 1.2 and 1.4, back on a way-old numbering scheme - I think the numbering scheme has changed at least twice since then. [I had a few different Linux distros (including Red Hat) back in their early days, but never actually used any of them other than to simply set them up to run. If I had it to do over again, I'd get into Linux early on. But I'll just try to rapidly absorb the whole thing now. We'll see, eh?]
Make sure your new PC is internet-connected, presumably behind some sort of firewall, though to be honest that won't be terribly important to start. (Nothing will be "listening" on a fresh install.) You don't need any sort of Gentoo install media, pretty much any sort of bootable installation media will do. Personally I prefer the SystemRescueCD. (Google is your friend.) The Gentoo handbook is pretty darned good, and people here are really good at answering questions. [Other than being on a 192.168... LAN behind my DSL router, I won't have any firewall. But I'm not really concerned about it. At least at first, these Linux machines will be learning lab toys, and will be erased and regenerated many times. And I routinely create disk images at each stage of installation, to facilitate back-tracking. Speaking of that, do you guys have any favorites for making complete disk images? I'd like something simple and fast. I don't care about automation of backups, etc.]
I approach my "birthday computer" with a little fear and "newbie attitude" myself. It's going to be my first UEFI machine, and that's going to be ALL different getting it to boot on it's own. I've read a ton of different ways to get a machine like that to boot, and I know from the Arch Linux forums that others have had booting problems with this board. It'll be an adventure. [Good luck with it. I've never done anything like that, or even used any hardware newer than the systems that I'm going to load Gentoo on right now, which was current about a decade ago, I think.]
Oh, I got my first cell phone last Christmas - a smartphone, largely as a learning vehicle. Within a few weeks I installed Cyanogenmod on it and have run that way since. At the end of July the last Cyanogenmod developer doing builds for this phone got a new phone, and there have been no new builds since. If I want new builds for my phone, I guess I might have to do them, so I've been learning that as well. I've actually had 2 successful builds so far, but there is an upstream problem and I know they won't boot until I revert to git commits, which is another learning curve. Soon.... [I was an early adopter of cell phones (mid-'80s, or whenever it was that they came out). But I have long since abandoned them, moved to the country, and now prefer to be unreachable most of the time.]
Good Luck |
[Thanks] |
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OS Newbie
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Joined: 26 Aug 2014
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:04 pm Post subject: Re: Well, I guess I might as well get started |
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| mrbassie wrote: | | OS Newbie wrote: |
Soon, I will try to get started on it. Wish me luck. I'm feeling at my most newbie-ish. And that is a state that is for me, most uncomfortable and most foreign. But as we all know, the only way out of it is to persevere until scar tissue has been acquired. |
Gentoo's probably a good fit for you then, you may or may not spend a couple of days banging your head on the screen but in the end you'll have more familiarity with the system than you'd get from a hundred point and click installs.
My tips:
Be careful when setting use flags (http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/use-index.xml) [I'll look into that. Right now, you're speaking Greek to me], get your system booting and backed up (http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Custom_Stage4) before you start adding or removing features to or from your packages. [I always make disk images at every stage]
emerge gentoolkit before anything else, it is indispensible (imho). [I'll definitely want to figure out how to do that (as well as when and why)]
Good luck, hope you enjoy. |
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Fitzcarraldo
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Joined: 30 Aug 2008
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Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| OS Newbie wrote: | | Speaking of that, do you guys have any favorites for making complete disk images? I'd like something simple and fast. |
 Clonezillla
How to Image and Clone Hard Drives with Clonezilla
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Clevo W230SS: amd64, VIDEO_CARDS="intel modesetting nvidia".
Compal NBLB2: ~amd64, xf86-video-ati. Dual boot Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
OpenRC udev elogind & KDE on both.
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toralf
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Chiitoo
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Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 2571
Location: Here and Away Again
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:57 pm Post subject: Re: ><)))°€ |
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| OS Newbie wrote: | | Thanks very much, for taking the time to say what you've said here. I love the tone of it. You seem like a wonderful soul, and one with whom I could have many great conversations. If it seems to you that my "anger levels" are on the rise, I apologize. Actually, they aren't, though my frustration level has been rising. And our family dog has been concerned by my repeated sighs. |
Heh, you're welcome! I wasn't completely serious about the anger levels, but I'm glad of them indeed not being in the rise.
I do hope the dog is not too worried, either.
| OS Newbie wrote: | | Please read my last post (to 1clue). It says everything that I have the energy to say, other than that in my case, learning by doing things is not my most comfortable way of approaching them. I do like reading books, and usually will read not just one or two on a subject before tackling it, but more usually most of the highly regarded books on the subject. That may have to do though, with the fact that I'm a fast reader, and a writer myself. One other thing that I want to say in response to you is that I've never wanted a personal guru to replace this forum (or any of the many other resources available). Why it is that everybody seems to have leaped to that conclusion is a mystery to me. I certainly expect to post lots of questions and concerns here and at other Linux forums, etc. That activity doesn't have much overlap with the kinds of things that I'd discuss with my Obi Wan guy. |
Thanks, that post did help a lot. I do believe I should have more than one clue (no puns intended, seriously!) on about what it was you were after indeed, but I don't think I can help making it any clearer. I think that's fine though, and I do believe this topic does have its merits regardless of the original intention. I, for one, find it interesting enough to follow.
I'm not sure what it is with me and reading; I do like to read, but things don't seem to stick in my memory too well these days. It probably shouldn't be an age thing either, as I only turned 30 some days ago! (Not implying that older (more experienced) people should have worse memory.)
| OS Newbie wrote: | | Your successful experience with Gentoo is inspiring, especially so, given that you didn't already have any deep programming experience or an IT background. In my case, I have decades of programming experience, and with hardware/software hacking, and also lots of experience in owning/running businesses that provided IT equipment and support. So if you can do it, I should be able to, one might reasonably assume. |
I'd imagine you should be able to do very well indeed. I may get on well with all kinds of machinery, cars, computers, and what have you, but by no means am I any sort of a genius (I think). Perhaps a bit of a Jack of all trades, definitely a master of none (there are times I'd rather be a master of some, but I'll not fight against what I've become).
| OS Newbie wrote: | | In any case, thanks again, for jumping in here before I ran away yelling "blahblahblahblah..." while covering my ears. I am going to try to avoid reading this thread anymore. I figure that if the guru type whom I seek should happen to come along someday and read this, he can PM me or something. Hopefully, nobody will do that just to continue what's been going on so far. But then, why would they? |
I do think it's worth reading still, and I am glad to see you have been doing so. The replies may not have been what you hoped for, but if nothing else, they show a bit of what kind of a place you've strolled upon.
| OS Newbie wrote: | | One other "question" I have in regards to Gentoo is whether or not it will be likely to have a long supported life into the future. An electronics engineer-turned-software guy I know told me that Gentoo was practically dead in that way. It seems to me from what you and others have been saying here, that it's very much alive and well. |
Much like others mentioned, I don't think Gentoo is going anywhere anytime soon. Moreover, I don't think anyone mentioned it here yet, but some often say that Gentoo is a set of tools that one uses to create their own distribution. One will have to really work on it to create two identical Gentoo installation (of course that's not difficult to technically pull off, but the point being is that all installations generally are different).
That being said, even though we skip the earlier stages of creating the base system these days, we do get so deep into it, that it's probably not that far from Linux From Scratch. The main difference (after stages) is probably the package manager(s), Portage (and alternatives), which makes quite a big difference indeed (I'm guessing a lot though, as I never really looked into LFS myself).
So, if Gentoo went bye-bye, one would lose the helpers it does provide, but one might have a good idea on how to create their own from scratch, as they in ways already did with Gentoo.
That's how I see it at least. It may not be a perfectly accurate view of the reality, but I hope it's not far from it either.
Again, welcome, and I wish you much success while also hoping you find your stay enjoyable, even if you're not in it for the fun!
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1clue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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+1 for using SystemRescueCD. It also lets you do RAID configurations right off the bat.
Also, I generally start sshd and set root password right away, and then do the install from my main workstation. It already has bookmarks, everything is set up the way I like and you can use full-featured Internet while you install.
I also recommend using 'screen' or 'tmux' so that if your session times out you can get back to where you were easily.
Personally for me the kernel is the only difficult part to Gentoo, or Linux in general if you made popular hardware choices. It's changing constantly because CPUs are changing constantly. I start with 'make defconfig' to get the settings to something sane, and then add my hardware and special features, and remove things I know I don't want. IMO there still isn't a happy solution for basic sane configs other than a whole lot of research.
Old timer's club: I resent that one must be a soccer fan to be a member.  |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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1clue,
You don'l have to be a soccer fan - I'm certainly not. The reference is to the last game I watched, almost 50 years ago.
I admit to being English though so there was a lot of peer pressure at the time.
OS Newbie,
Some advice that hasn't been posted in this thread.
You won't learn a lot from a Gentoo install that 'just works', you will follow the instructions, reboot and get a shell prompt.
So far, so good. The learning starts when it doesn't work and you fix it. Starting over because it doen't work only gives you an opportunity not to make the same mistake again. You don't learn from that either.
Reinstalling because its broken is not the Gentoo way. Its actually very difficult to damage a Gentoo install so badly that a reistall is the only option. There are a few scenarios, where the fix takes longer that the reinstall but the fix is a wonderful educational opportunity.
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NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
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1clue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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I deliberately left out the first transatlantic TV broadcast which was 1928. I thought it would be funny, but evidently nobody noticed. I also missed JFK by 2 years and 2 months.
I DID watch the moon landing, but I was 3 and didn't really understand why it was so special. I remember it, I remember the image on the screen and the excitement of everyone around me, but didn't know the importance until much later. |
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steveL
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Location: The Peanut Gallery
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| Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | | There are a few scenarios, where the fix takes longer that the reinstall but the fix is a wonderful educational opportunity. |
And if that thought doesn't brighten your day (it did mine:), you should choose another distro. Nobody will mind, or at least: no Gentoo users will. People are always coming and going because Gentoo doesn't tell you what to do, nor try and lock you in. The whole point of it is to access the shared collective effort.
If you're just in it for the money, that may appeal on another level: beware, as our community has seen and heard it all before.. play nicely with us and we'll play nicely with you; most of us use our computers for work too. |
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OS Newbie
n00b
Joined: 26 Aug 2014
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: | | NeddySeagoon wrote: | | There are a few scenarios, where the fix takes longer that the reinstall but the fix is a wonderful educational opportunity. |
And if that thought doesn't brighten your day (it did mine:), you should choose another distro. Nobody will mind, or at least: no Gentoo users will. People are always coming and going because Gentoo doesn't tell you what to do, nor try and lock you in. The whole point of it is to access the shared collective effort.
If you're just in it for the money, that may appeal on another level: beware, as our community has seen and heard it all before.. play nicely with us and we'll play nicely with you; most of us use our computers for work too. |
This makes me smile. As for me, I feel attracted to Gentoo like a caffeinated moth to the flames of Hell. I've spent my whole life being driven at least partially by the motto "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" and not feeling content until I understand from the sub-atomic level, up, whatever it is that I'm working with, which is why practically everything in the computer universe drives me crazy. I loathe the way that companies change things around, and obscure from view (and access) the things that make working with them worthwhile. On the other hand, having said that, I am realizing more and more profoundly, how different the brain is at age 60 than at age 28. I wish that I had aligned myself with Unix back when I started this trek, especially since I was somewhat familiar with it at the beginning (in my university days, in my early 20s). But the idea that the whole point of it is to access the shared collective effort doesn't do anything for me, either. Interacting with the Gentoo community may be fun, and nice for dealing with it in general. But the main point for me is definitely about harnessing Gentoo as a tool. I have serious uses for it. And that, for me is the whole point of it.
If your reference to being "just in it for the money" has anything to do with my earlier statement about my having been "in it for the money," and why that led me away from Unix (which was absolutely the case - I never wanted to be in the computer business at all), Let me reiterate the fact that I specifically said what I said in an effort to point out that I was in it for the money then, not now. I will forever into the future refuse to get shackled to employment in any form, but especially as a computer guy. I won't pursue any business strategies that involve having any employees working for hire, either. So my interest in Gentoo has nothing whatsoever to do with anything along those lines. |
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depontius
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| OS Newbie wrote: |
This makes me smile. As for me, I feel attracted to Gentoo like a caffeinated moth to the flames of Hell. I've spent my whole life being driven at least partially by the motto "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" |
I take this page in humor, I'm not sure if it was meant so, or how other take it...
"Gentoo is for Ricers"
http://fun.irq.dk/funroll-loops.org/
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OS Newbie
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Joined: 26 Aug 2014
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: | | OS Newbie wrote: |
This makes me smile. As for me, I feel attracted to Gentoo like a caffeinated moth to the flames of Hell. I've spent my whole life being driven at least partially by the motto "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" |
I take this page in humor, I'm not sure if it was meant so, or how other take it...
"Gentoo is for Ricers"
http://fun.irq.dk/funroll-loops.org/ |
Thanks for that! That was just what I needed to put a smile on my face as I run out the door to meet-up with a fellow retro-tech aficionado. I'm behind schedule, and was intending to only glance at it, then read it when I got back. But I had to read every word. |
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NeddySeagoon
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Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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OS Newbie,
From your reply to | steveL wrote: | | The whole point of it is to access the shared collective effort. |
you are thinking too narrowly.
I'm sure you won't be designing your own computer, then soldering it all together and adding your own BIOS and so on.
Its the shared collective effort that gave you say, the Linux kernel or the GNU toolchain or even the Portage package manager and all the ebuilds, so you can have Gentoo in the first place.
Of course, this viewpoint does not prevent you or anyone else "harnessing Gentoo as a tool."
Google use Gentoo as the basis for ChromeOS, so you are in good company.
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NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
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OS Newbie
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Joined: 26 Aug 2014
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:52 am Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | OS Newbie,
From your reply to | steveL wrote: | | The whole point of it is to access the shared collective effort. |
you are thinking too narrowly.
I'm sure you won't be designing your own computer, then soldering it all together and adding your own BIOS and so on.
Its the shared collective effort that gave you say, the Linux kernel or the GNU toolchain or even the Portage package manager and all the ebuilds, so you can have Gentoo in the first place... |
You're right. I was thinking too narrowly. But actually, I very likely may be designing my own computer, soldering it all together, adding my own BIOS and so on. I've done that very thing numerous times. That sort of hardware/software hacking is exactly my thing. What I am not likely to do though, is write my own Unix-like OS from scratch. And I will love the fact that I can access the shared collective effort that is Gentoo. |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:07 am Post subject: |
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OS Newbie,
A long time ago I made my own APPLE ][. I bouught the hardware manual for £10.
It gave all the ciruit diagrams and fimware listings, which I had to type up, proof read then fuse into ROMs.
The only reason it didn't mork first time is that someone gawe me some 64k bit DRAMS and I wanted 16k ones.
I left out the extra address wire.
Since that time electronics han changed. I don't do surface mount at home. Some of the parts ore now too small for me to see.
I know where you are comming from.
For our younger readers, the 144kB floppy drive and Disk Operatitg System cost me £350 a few years later.
You will get on well with Gentoo as you have a problem solving approach to it.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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OS Newbie
n00b
Joined: 26 Aug 2014
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | OS Newbie,
A long time ago I made my own APPLE ][...
Since that time electronics has changed. I don't do surface mount at home. Some of the parts are now too small for me to see.
I know where you are coming from... |
Well, actually, I do spend time building electronic stuff, but mostly things like vacuum tube pro audio circuitry, discrete semiconductor circuits for electric guitar, etc. But when it comes to building computer stuff, it's a strictly CAD-based world, with physical prototyping done by service bureaus. That's the only practical way to build anything for a new product design, unless one opts to utilize embedded controller boards like the Beaglebone Black. For my purposes though, size is of the essence. I need to make circuitry fit into very small spaces. |
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depontius
Advocate
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 3509
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| OS Newbie wrote: | | NeddySeagoon wrote: | OS Newbie,
A long time ago I made my own APPLE ][...
Since that time electronics has changed. I don't do surface mount at home. Some of the parts are now too small for me to see.
I know where you are coming from... |
Well, actually, I do spend time building electronic stuff, but mostly things like vacuum tube pro audio circuitry, discrete semiconductor circuits for electric guitar, etc. But when it comes to building computer stuff, it's a strictly CAD-based world, with physical prototyping done by service bureaus. That's the only practical way to build anything for a new product design, unless one opts to utilize embedded controller boards like the Beaglebone Black. For my purposes though, size is of the essence. I need to make circuitry fit into very small spaces. |
A friend of mine has gotten into using fpgas. Since I'm currently in VLSI circuit design it doesn't appeal to me right now - but I'm keeping it in mind for after I retire. He's into vintage computers, and there are people who have implemented complete vintage computers in an fpga. I also think it would be really interesting to do physics-based simulation of vacuum tubes. The venerable 12AX7 was no doubt designed with a slide rule, and it has certainly stood the test of time. But I wonder if modern simulation could suggest something non-obvious that wouldn't have occurred to people with slide rules.
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: | | ... implemented complete vintage computers in an fpga. |
I hear stories, (now quite old) of 6502s in a FPGA running at 100MHz.
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NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
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steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah the "collective effort" is all that code, which you can dive into once you're on Gentoo, since you always have it, and can always tweak it.
The community is another, distinct, aspect which depends on how sociable you are, and how considerate, as well as useful.
| NeddySeagoon wrote: | | depontius wrote: | | ... implemented complete vintage computers in an fpga. |
I hear stories, (now quite old) of 6502s in a FPGA running at 100MHz. |
Damn, that's fast; when I moved to Z80 from 6502, the CPU was only at 3MHz (Z80; don't recall what 6502 was on.)
I had some kid on IRC tell me Z80s didn't run so slow, but i swear they did in my day ;-) |
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John R. Graham
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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The first computer I personally built had a 4 MHz Z-80. They did run that slowly. I remember feeling quite smug, though, as the mainframe I was programming on at the time (IBM 370/158) clocked in at about 0.8 MIPS.
- John
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depontius
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Posts: 3509
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: |
I had some kid on IRC tell me Z80s didn't run so slow, but i swear they did in my day  |
Every computer is slow, or becomes so with a little time. Any computer is fast only when you first move to it. Then you adjust to its speed, and it becomes slow.
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steveL
Watchman
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Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: | | Every computer is slow, or becomes so with a little time. Any computer is fast only when you first move to it. Then you adjust to its speed, and it becomes slow. |
Perhaps I'm getting old, but the more I tweak my Gentoo install to do only what I want, the sweeter it runs.. :-)
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| creaker wrote: | | systemd. It is a really ass pain |
update - "a most excellent portage wrapper"
#friendly-coders -- We're still here for you™ ;) |
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OS Newbie
n00b
Joined: 26 Aug 2014
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| John R. Graham wrote: | The first computer I personally built had a 4 MHz Z-80. They did run that slowly. I remember feeling quite smug, though, as the mainframe I was programming on at the time (IBM 370/158) clocked in at about 0.8 MIPS.
- John |
"Slow" can be taken multiple ways. My first Z-80 system (my fifth system, I think) ran at 4 MHz. It was blazingly fast. But since it was spending 99.999999...% of its time waiting for the next finger to fall on the keyboard, it of course seemed fast. In the '80s, we had on display, an S-100 bus system running (Digital Research) Concurrent DOS on a 286 CPU shared between a dozen or so users. We would repeatedly execute something like a database record lookup, and marvel at the fact that the data would instantly display on our screens (faster than we could release the <return> key.
Later, when along came things like Windows 3.x, and GUIs of multiple sorts, boatware, etc., systems got slower (in terms of speed perceived by the users). After that, a constant balancing act ensued, hardware making significant strides in performance and capability, while Mr. Gates and his minions struggled mightily to negate them. Nowadays, it is pretty cool how one can use a Linux machine, Mac or if unfortunately employed, even Windows, to develop code and run it on a target system that doesn't even have to have an OS. With today's hardware, doing that can result in performance results similar to what running CP/M on an i7 would be like. Of course that said, what usually actually happens is that people lazily just run a full-blown OS on their target (off-the-shelf) controller board, and rely on its speed to negate the negative consequences. |
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depontius
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Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 3509
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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The faster the box, the harder the work I throw at it. Many times today I've managed to bury my 16G W530, which seemed so sweet only a few months ago. Of course I'm running the corporate GNOME desktop, but even that wouldn't make that big a difference. Throw a big enough design at it, walk away for a few minutes, and you'll find your desktops swapped out.
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Yamakuzure
Advocate
Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 2284
Location: Adendorf, Germany
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| Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2014 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: |
The faster the box, the harder the work I throw at it. Many times today I've managed to bury my 16G W530, which seemed so sweet only a few months ago. Of course I'm running the corporate GNOME desktop, but even that wouldn't make that big a difference. Throw a big enough design at it, walk away for a few minutes, and you'll find your desktops swapped out. |
Then your system configuration allows too fast swapping. The kernel will swap out even if plenty of RAM is free. I have the following settings, and I never see my swap used even with KDE4 running, VMWare Workstation running a Windows 7 Developer installation (8GB RAM) and portage emerging qt5-gui in the background. (Note: My laptop has 32GB RAM.) | Code: | ~ $ grep -A 1 -B 1 vm.swap /etc/sysctl.conf
# Reduce swappiness from server like 60 to 32GB RAM notebook 0
vm.swappiness=0
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 |
Note: swappiness=0 does not mean that swap is disabled. A value of 0 instructs the kernel not to initiate swap until the amount of free and file-backed pages is less than the high water mark in a zone.
Current memory state: (VM is running, Windows 7 thinks it has 8GB of RAM) | Code: | ~ $ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 32070 25387 6682 8819 143 18790
-/+ buffers/cache: 6454 25616
Swap: 57343 0 57343 |
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Important German:- "Aha" - German reaction to pretend that you are really interested while giving no f*ck.
- "Tja" - German reaction to the apocalypse, nuclear war, an alien invasion or no bread in the house.
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