[solved/complete] Fresh stage1 install, flags advice needed

Message

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:31 pm

Well, after a few (2-3) months on Ubuntu I came to a conclusion, that I'm just can't use binary distributions with frozen repositories. It's so... uncomfortable waiting for new app versions show only with the whole system release. Well nevermind the reasons...
I need some help with getting the best optimization flag combination to make the install work at it's best. I'm going to do a stage1 install to get the whole thing optimized. I already know that I need to use "MARCH=k8" for my processor (AMD Turion64 X2).
What I need is possibly the best compination of flags for speed and stability. I already know that I can't use "-ffast-math".

Can someone help me with choosing the best optimization flags?

Sadako · Post by **Sadako** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:42 pm

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CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon64 -msse3 -pipe"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
USE="mmx mmxext sse sse2 3dnow 3dnowext nptl threads ithreads"

Some of these USE flags will already be set for you depending on the profile you use.

I believe "-msse3" is okay for all X2's, however I'm not completely sure about turions, so you should check if you have pni listed in the flags section of /proc/cpuinfo.

You can also mess around with LDFLAGS, but there isn't really any consensus on those so you should look them up yourself (LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" would be a decent minimum though).

It should be pointed out though that stage 1 installs aren't really supported anymore, doing an `emerge -e system && emerge -e world` what a later stage install will give you an equally "optimised" installation.

Dagger · Post by **Dagger** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 2:43 pm

worth checking:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/CFLAGS
http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:49 pm

Hopeless wrote:I believe "-msse3" is okay for all X2's, however I'm not completely sure about turions, so you should check if you have pni listed in the flags section of /proc/cpuinfo.

You can also mess around with LDFLAGS, but there isn't really any consensus on those so you should look them up yourself (LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" would be a decent minimum though).

It should be pointed out though that stage 1 installs aren't really supported anymore, doing an `emerge -e system && emerge -e world` what a later stage install will give you an equally "optimised" installation.

Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).

Dagger: thanks for the links.

Thanks guys. I think I have what I need.

pussi · Post by **pussi** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:55 pm

dnadesign wrote:Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).

That can't be because of the stage1 install.

Hopeless wrote:doing an `emerge -e system && emerge -e world` what a later stage install will give you an equally "optimised" installation.

Dagger · Post by **Dagger** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:58 pm

Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).

Stage 1 is one and the only way to go

Sadako · Post by **Sadako** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:07 pm

Dagger wrote:
Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).
Stage 1 is one and the only way to go

I still do stage 1 installs too, but only because I do "naughty" things to the install which are easier to do during a bootstrap.

I agree with pussi, and I don't see any way a stage 1 install would result in such compilation speedups over a stage 2/3.

pietia · Post by **pietia** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:15 am

Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).

I can't agree. I have Asus A6 laptop with Turion64 x2. Few days ago i installed (stage 3) i686 version of gentoo with athlon-xp cflag.
oo.org compialtion took 7.5 hours.

today i want to install 64-bit version gentoo - can i expect any boost ?

Dagger · Post by **Dagger** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:38 am

Duo Core 2 2.13Ghz intel 82975X - OO around 5h 35 min. Of course I'm not saying its because of stage1.

Sadako · Post by **Sadako** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:39 pm

pietia wrote:I can't agree. I have Asus A6 laptop with Turion64 x2. Few days ago i installed (stage 3) i686 version of gentoo with athlon-xp cflag.
oo.org compialtion took 7.5 hours.

today i want to install 64-bit version gentoo - can i expect any boost ?

Possibly, there really isn't much reason to stick with i686 on amd64 hardware anymore.

For the record though, you can still use "-march=k8" in CFLAGS even on 32 bit installations.

Dagger wrote:Duo Core 2 2.13Ghz intel 82975X - OO around 5h 35 min. Of course I'm not saying its because of stage1.

I'm still prefer amd, but even I have to admit that the core 2's are simply faster than the current athlon64 X2's, and I have absolutely no doubt that that's why your compile of openoffice went so much faster.

Dagger · Post by **Dagger** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:48 pm

in my previous job I had really much to do with AMD cpus. Staring from K5 up to athlon64. I promised myself never to use it again. Always sticked with Intel (and not because it was faster... because some time ago AMD processors were faster) and ever had any problems with it.

pussi · Post by **pussi** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:54 pm

pietia wrote:
Yup, the Turions have the pni flag. As for the stage1 install I know it's not supported anymore, but still I will do it. Stage1 gives me an incredible speed boost (OOffice compiles in 7 hours instead of 10, kernel compiles in under 25 minutes).
I can't agree. I have Asus A6 laptop with Turion64 x2. Few days ago i installed (stage 3) i686 version of gentoo with athlon-xp cflag.
oo.org compialtion took 7.5 hours.

today i want to install 64-bit version gentoo - can i expect any boost ? 8O

Actually compilation times might actually be slower on 64bit, even though the overall performance should be better.

pietia · Post by **pietia** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:43 pm

Hopeless wrote:You can also mess around with LDFLAGS, but there isn't really any consensus on those so you should look them up yourself (LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" would be a decent minimum though).

As we can read in wiki - LDFLAGS for Turion are not listed in safe flags. May i ask - why ?
Is it too dangerous ?

sry, i new to gentoo (debian user... )

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:28 pm

pietia wrote:
Hopeless wrote:You can also mess around with LDFLAGS, but there isn't really any consensus on those so you should look them up yourself (LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" would be a decent minimum though).
As we can read in wiki - LDFLAGS for Turion are not listed in safe flags. May i ask - why ?
Is it too dangerous ?

sry, i new to gentoo (debian user... )

Perhaps not tested? I don't know.

Anyways I'm going to go with the stage1 install again... Just can't get used to distros like Ubuntu, they're lacking that "something" that Gentoo has...

But I'll skip the LDFLAGS part (alas someone gives me a good stable set of those flags for Turion 64 X2

).

LoSeR_5150 · Post by **LoSeR_5150** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:17 pm

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LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"

these are generally considered *safe* LDFLAGS, as Ubuntu and a few other distros ship with it by default.

my complete flags are:

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LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--hash-style=gnu" 
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -fgcse-after-reload -fno-ident -fweb -msse3 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -fgcse-after-reload -fno-ident -fweb -msse3 -pipe -fno-enforce-eh-specs -fvisibility-inlines-hidden"

I use these same flags on two x86 (one core2duo and one sempron64) installs and two x86_64 (one core2duo the other opteron) installs I have never experienced one problem. Hope this helps.

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:24 pm

Yeah, it helps a lot. Thanks to everyone.

One last question: are there any drawbacks, threats, etc. when using arch=k8 with a standard x86 install? I want to go 32bit again (without loosing too much on optimalization) on my Turion, so I don't get any AMD64-related compatibility issues (I just want piece of software I can think of working, x86_64 archs ain't that well supported yet).

LoSeR_5150 · Post by **LoSeR_5150** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:27 pm

There should be no drawbacks using march=k8/opteron/athlon64 using x86, just make sure your chost setting is correct. Also the only *real* compatibility issue with amd64 is the lack of a decent java plugin, the blackdown 1.4.2 is buggy and crashes, but using firefox-bin allows for the latest java 1.6 to be used and all is well. Though in all honesty the difference between x86 and x86_64 is braggin rights IMHO

Update:

This is my make.conf from my sempron64 which is my x86 install...

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loser@Purgatory ~ $ cat /etc/make.conf
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"

CFLAGS="-march=k8"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -O2"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fgcse-after-reload"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fno-ident"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fomit-frame-pointer"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fweb"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -msse3"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -pipe"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS} -fno-enforce-eh-specs"
CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS} -fvisibility-inlines-hidden"

FEATURES="fixpackages parellel-fetch"

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS} -Wl,--hash-style=gnu"

MAKEOPTS="-j2"

PORT_LOGDIR=/var/log/portage 
PORTAGE_ELOG_CLASSES="warn error log info"
PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save"
PORTAGE_NICENESS="0"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"

USE="3dnow 3dnowext x86 a52 aac aalib acpi apach2 bash-completion bzip2 
     cdparanoia cdr crypt dbus dio directfb dvd dvdr dvdread encode fam 
     fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac ftp gif glibc-omitfp gnome gpm gtk gtk2 
     ithreads java javascript jpeg kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisiblity 
     lm_sensors mikmod mmx mmxext mng mp3 mpeg mysql nptl nptlonly 
     nsplugin offensive ogg openal opengl pdf png pni quicktime samba 
     sse sse2 ssl svga symlink threads tiff truetype unicode usb vorbis 
     wifi win32codecs xml xv xvid zlib 

     -arts -dri -eds -esd -kde -qt -qt3 -qt4"


VIDEO_CARDS="nv nvidia"

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loser@Purgatory ~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 79
model name      : AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3000+
stepping        : 2
cpu MHz         : 1607.338
cache size      : 256 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm extapic cr8legacy ts ttp tm stc
bogomips        : 3231.47
clflush size    : 64

THough now that I am using Gcc 4.2.2 I will be taking advantage of using march=native and letting gcc decide which march setting is best.

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:47 pm

Heh. Cool.

Now I do have all I need and the x86 livecd is about halfway there.

Now I only need to choose a filesystem for a mixed server/desktop configuration (software/web developer mode ON

), but I'll google that out (hints are welcome). Might even think of using my skills to support/help Gentoo.

LoSeR_5150 · Post by **LoSeR_5150** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:21 pm

I've tried only a handful of filing systems (ext3, reiserfs, and reiser4) I honestly couldn't really notice a difference between ext3 and reiserfs, and reiser4 only felt slighter faster. And after hearing about all the issues with reiser4 and horror stories I went with reiserfs. It has been very very reliable, even with hard shutdowns and what not. Though as time has progressed I believe I am facing fragmentation issues. And since there is no defrag utility I guess I will have to tar, re-format, tar to get rid of it. Anyways I'd probably stick with ext3 as its tried and true and fast enough for all intents and purposes

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:21 pm

Ok. So I've got tha basic install ready and optimized for Turion, but it's still 32-bit. Everything seems to run smoothly, fast and seems to go easy on the memory. I'm still on my way compiling the software I need (Opera, FF, Thunderbird) and the system itself still needs some tuning, but I've already have the xserver 1.4 and Xfce up and running.

Ehh... sadly I still need to wait for the new ATI fglrx, bacause the current one is blocking the xserver 1.4 (and vice-versa).

LoSeR_5150 · Post by **LoSeR_5150** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:43 pm

Man am I glad that I have an NVidia Card...

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:48 pm

LoSeR_5150 wrote:
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...
FEATURES="fixpackages parellel-fetch"
...

Hey, shouldn't this be parallel-fetch?

LoSeR_5150 · Post by **LoSeR_5150** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:05 pm

yes, thanks for catching that typo...

dnadesign · Post by **dnadesign** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:53 pm

LoSeR_5150 wrote: yes, thanks for catching that typo...

No problem. Thanks for your and other peoples help. Gentoo is working like a dream.

Fast, stable, very responsive...

electrofreak · Post by **electrofreak** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:03 pm

You guys are really making me want to install gentoo on my desktop again (see specs in signature).