Trying to squeeze Gentoo onto a k6-225 + 32M ram

saint_abroad · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 53 Location: England, UK

Computer specs:
Amd k6-225 in PCChips M549 motherboard
32MB edo ram
2HDs of size 1GB and 2GB

Now I know that the computer above is ridiculously old, but I wanted to try a linux system with gnome on it and Gentoo seems to be a good a system as any. Since its a slow computer, I am doing it from stage1. Yes, it will take bl**dy ages to compile but the system is lying around with nothing to do. Anyways, it happens to be bootstrapping at the moment, so I will take this free time to ask about lvm and Gentoo.

Basically, I have read the documentation (inc getting started guide), and decided go a bit further and use lvm since I have two small HDs. I have managed to create a boot and swap partition (is 192MB big enough considering the 32MB ram?) on the 1GB HD and created a single lvm on the rest of the space and the second HD. I then used ReiserFS on the boot and lvm. And now am bootstrapping...

Now, seeing that a bootstrap will probably take a few days, I don't want to have to do this from scratch again. So I am wondering if anyone has done this before and knows of any common pitfalls I may come across. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. For instance, when I rebooted after testing an lvm, I had to activate the lvm again by using:
vgchange -a y

This would be a pain to do each boot, and may even stop the boot (would it mount root if the lvm is not activated?). Also, are there any files other than the downloaded emerge files I could safely delete once the system is completely up?

Thanks in advance, I will check this thread frequently for help.
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saint_abroad · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 53 Location: England, UK

Crap. Crashed on Gcc compile.
Need to start again. It may have been the low memory, so am using 256MB swap this time.
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Luder99 · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2002 Posts: 41

I wouldn't bother with a stage 1 on something that old. I'm sure everyone else is sick of hearing this, but I got Gentoo installed on a Pentium 120Mhz machine with 32M memory.

I have a 3.2G HD, and I followed the direction pretty much as outlines here. 50M boot, 64M swap, and the rest being root.

I chose to give up the journaling FS and just go with ext2 for speed. It wasn't important for me for the extra headaches in getting ReiserFS support etc. On something that old, I don't think you will get much out of going with stage 1, really, and save yourself a week and start from stage 3. I think a couple of days is going to be more like a week or more on that machine. It took me 3 days to emerge XFree86!

If I recall right, I think I tried to emerge gcc as well on the above machine and it too crapped out. I bet you won't get through it, although if it works, let me know, I might try it again too then...

You might be better off with a lighter weight wm, BUT I do know someone who is running gnome on a 233 Pentium and he's happy. Personal preference there... I opted for blackbox on the 120Mhz machine. It's nice enough, and it works.

Let me know how it turns out...
KARL

saint_abroad · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 53 Location: England, UK

Encouraging to see somebody else running gentoo and X with similar specifications. I also noticed you don't have much swap space - have any problems arisen out of that?

As for using stage3, I may do that if it craps out compiling gcc again. The main reason I went for stage1 was to customise it for leaness and optimizations. Also I heard that reiserFS was faster than ext3, especially when data being written is more than available ram (I would think often in my case). If anyone here happens to know what optimizations the k6 stage3 uses and what the use variable is, it may well convince me against the folly of bootstrapping on such a slow computer. Also, why do people even try compiling from stage1 if it isnt better in some way?

Lastly, what wm do people use here for their slower (<400MHz) computers?

PS, The computer doesnt need to do much, I just want to introduce my dad to linux with open office, and want to dabble a little in c++ linux/gtk2.
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rac · Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 11:31 pm Post subject:

I have Gentoo running (no X now, but both machines have run X in the past) on a K6-200 and a Pentium 133. This is just a personal opinion, but I consider the Gentoo stage 1 install an excellent hardware test, and if I find a machine does not complete it successfully, I would consider it papering over the problem to go to a stage 3 install. There are still likely hardware problems there, and they will bite you eventually, especially if your purpose is to demonstrate the stability of linux. If you can, beg or borrow some RAM from another PC and try swapping it with the RAM that's in there now. Also make sure the power supply and cooling are adequate.
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Luder99 · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2002 Posts: 41

My lack of swap MAY have contributed to gcc crapping out, but honestly I pretty much never run into swap during normal usage. I'm not doing much on it, but I usually run with about 19M free memory and NO SWAP used.

I've got X, blackbox, AbiWord, licq, Opera, gKrellM, and probably a few other apps running. I don't run all of it all of the time, but I have had AbiWord and Opera running at the same time, no swap that I know of.

I tried waimea which I liked, however I needed to "downgrade" my X to the 3.3.6 XFREE_SVGA binary because 4.2.1 doesn't support my video. At that speed I wanted to make sure I was using the accelerated drivers if they were available. waimea needs 4.2.x I believe, so I switched to Blackbox.

I was actually using VectorLinux on that box (laptop) before I took on Gentoo. It was nice and ran well. Gentoo is faster however.

Others will have to fill you in on the different fs under Linux. I was told by one person that the overhead of the Journaling on ext3 and ReiserFS wasn't worth the "security" especially on my machine considering what I was going to use it for.

Hope that helps...
KARL

mooman · Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 1:35 am Post subject:

saint_abroad · n00b Joined: 08 Nov 2002 Posts: 53 Location: England, UK

I got a segmentation fault.

During the final stages (I think) of the bootstrap I get a segmentation fault, and ebuild exits with a few closing errors. Tried again and got same fault in same place. Maybe 32MB isnt enough to bootstrap after all. However, I always persevere and so have ordered 2x64MB sdram from dabs - I only hope the motherboard can take that size.

Just in case it's my optimizations, here they are (k6 cpu):

helmers · Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 9:32 am Post subject:

As much as I like Gentoo, I'd say has its limitations. One of them is working on slow machines. I'd recommend Slackware for you any day. I've installed it on a P75 16MB RAM, and I've got X ,BlackBox & sound working just fine.

Slackware is also known for its incredible stability. But of course, on my desktop I want bleeding edge, so I stick with Gentoo.
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