[SOLVED] Has anyone installed Gentoo on a PII 400?

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JoshFed · Post by **JoshFed** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:03 pm

I just aquired a spare machine and I'm thinking about dipping my toe in Gentoo waters. I'm wondering about how long it will take to install on a PII400 w/ 128MB of RAM. I was going to start from Stage 2 and install KDE, Apache, server stuff (PHP, Perl, CGI, etc).
Thanks
Josh

crown · Post by **crown** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:20 pm

I recently installed Gentoo on a PII 400Mhz with plenty of RAM (768mb) but as a server, not a workstation, so no KDE, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org or other huge packages. The box mainly runs djbdns and postfix and took about 48 hours to get fully up and running (could have done it quicker had I more time to work on it). I used GLIS for this particular install.

You might also want to wait a few weeks for 1.4 final which looks like it will have precompiled packages for several different target architectures. Not sure if all the different versions will be available for download or only for purchase.

YetiChick · Post by **YetiChick** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:22 pm

Not the same machine, but it might help make a more educated guess since it's in a wimp-class, too...

A K6-3 450MHz with 384M of RAM took me three full days to build from Stage 2 with X, KDE, Apache and all the usual server goodies. There was very little non-compile time, since I started the big stuff before going to bed and it was generally still going when I woke.

Hmm... probably less help than I originally thought, but there ya go.

Tracy

JoshFed · Post by **JoshFed** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:29 pm

Three days is better then a week. I read a post or two somewhere that said, "don't bother trying to use your computer for a week if you're going to install Gentoo."

Thanks
Josh

Ben2040 · Post by **Ben2040** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:34 pm

Same here Yeti (don't mind if I call you Yeti do you. Good

)
Only I'm on a K6-2 450Mhz

I have tried to upgrade to 550Mhz but prices have gone through the roof - Over £50 for a 500 alone.

And I also don't think it could ever take a week, especcially from a stage 2 - THis was on a stage 1...

Ben

jeffrice · Post by **jeffrice** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:06 pm

I did a stage1 on a PII-400 w/ 256 Mb. It takes a long time, for sure, but it worked... about 3 days I think, as people have said. Fluxbox worked fine, mozilla took quite a while but ran fine once it installed.

A more significant point is this:

Gentoo, once installed, will run better on a low-end machine than any other distro, because it is tailed for your machine exactly and won't have all the baggage that a higher-end machine would be able to run. While it takes longer to prepare, it will pay off later as the tasks you have to sit and wait for will execute faster. You can always go for a walk... sleep several times, see a couple movies, take a road trip... while it bootstraps and emerges system.

I'd do a stage one, if I were you. It really takes very little extra time on your part -- just set it up and come back later. And you'll get a little extra boost later, when you'll care more about speed (as you wait for apps to load, etc...)

paranode · Post by **paranode** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:13 pm

I think you might find, however, that KDE will be a bit slow on that computer. Gnome might be a little faster. If you can manage without the fancy stuff, then something like Fluxbox would serve you well.

ectospasm · Post by **ectospasm** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:20 pm

I first installed Gentoo on a PII Celeron 333MHz, with something like 384MB RAM, and it took me at least three days to get it working how I wanted. Of course, I didn't install X, window managers, or non-server related apps until later.

My recommendation is to start with a stage 3 tarball to get you going, then rebuild everything as needed. I'd stay away from building KDE because that will make the install take a week. If you need a GUI, get something lightweight like WindowMaker or my new personal favorite, Fluxbox.

GuidoJ · Post by **GuidoJ** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:40 pm

I built Gentoo Linux on a PII/233, 96Mb all the way from stage1, no X let alone Qt/KDE or Gtk/Gnome. It works fine, you just need a lot (read: loads and loads) of patience. Last weekend I updated binutils, gcc and glibc. Took me about 16 hours.

GuidoJ · Post by **GuidoJ** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:45 pm

Forgot to mention: since you acquired this as a spare machine I assume you have at least one other machine runnign Gentoo Linux as well. In that case: use distcc! It does not work for the most basic packages, but it will surely speed up building KDE.

Senso · Post by **Senso** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:12 am

I'm myself using Gentoo on a PII 200, with only 64MB RAM. I did a stage 1 install and it took, all in all, almost two days. And I'm not counting all the apps I emerged after the install. It's not fast or anything but it's enough for me. At least, I have a 256MB stick and a 80GB HD coming in the mail, that should help.

JoshFed · Post by **JoshFed** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:18 pm

I fired the box up and it has 256MB of RAM!!

But the hardware won't recognize the HDD I put in, so I've got that to wrestle with.

I don't think I'll install KDE/GNOME, a light WM will do just fine.

Thanks all

Manu-BE · Post by **Manu-BE** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:14 pm

I installed Gentoo on a PIII 450Mhz and took a day from stage 1 then emerged kde and it took about 12h .... openoffice takes a while but I don't remember well .

Kde is a little bit slow but WMaker and FluxBox rulez !

HTH.

Deedook · Post by **Deedook** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:29 pm

Don't even think about openoffice, use the openoffice-bin instead. With my 1.333Ghz with 512 ram, it took about 13h to compile oo!

kikawala · Post by **kikawala** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 2:15 am

I have PII 400 with 384 RAM. It took me 3 days from stage 1 to X/KDE and another 3 days just for openoffice.

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:11 pm

Agreed!

My PII 433mhz and 256mb took about 3 days to go from stage1 to KDE

binny · Post by **binny** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:53 pm

My brother's workstation is a Celeron 300 with 96Mo Ram. It took me 5 days to install a gentoo on it (xfree + icewm + some gtk and qt softs) from stage3.

Mine is a P3 500 with 390Mo Ram. 4 days to install xfree + kde (from stage3)

Next step is my server which is a AMD K5 100 with 24Mo RAM

NiXZe · Post by **NiXZe** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:41 pm

I'm runing a laptop with a PII400 and 220MB RAM i started with a 366 with 128MB RAM (got the new comp when the install was done) and well it took about a week to get X kde mplayer wine going well there where some dead time in there to and since it was my first experience of gentoo i made som mistakes... however to have all small nice usable packeges installd well a total it was 2 weeks and lets say 50/50 compile/information serch and so fourt... anyway GLHF!

(with GLIS today it would probebly only have taken litle more then a weekend to get it going!

minic00p3r · Post by **minic00p3r** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:04 pm

I took me about 1 and a half weeks to get a working X nd gnome on my 300mhz 128ram laptop, BUT

I had some trouble with pcmcia which wasted a day and I didnt set the cflags first time o it was bootstrapping for 2 days solid before i noticed!
So about a week I guess, but working fine now with opera, galeon, xmmx, gimp, abiword and lyx - which is all the programs i need.

christsong84 · Post by **christsong84** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 1:53 pm

took me a bit, but i made a firewall with a wm on it (yeah yeah...flame me all ya like for putting a ugi interface on a server...i'm just like pretty stuff when i work). Firewall specs: PII-450mghq, 512ram. Took me about three days in total but it went fine in the end.

NinerFan · Post by **NinerFan** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 5:50 pm

minic00p3r wrote:I took me about 1 and a half weeks to get a working X nd gnome on my 300mhz 128ram laptop

I was beginning to feel bad about my situation until I saw this.

I don't mean to laugh at your expense, but this has made my day so far.

I did an emerge kde on a PII-266 with 128 Megs of RAM.

I started in the evening and expected it to be done by morning.

Next morning came, and it still wasn't done.

I was shocked when it still wasn't done by the time I came back from work, but let it slide.

Again the following morning it still wasn't done, but didn't have time to look at it because i had to go to work. After getting home and examining why it was still not finished, I discovered that I had neglected to let distcc through the firewall on my other computer.
Ugh!

I caught a glimpse that there are still 5 more packages that need to be built, and it has now turned into a case of curiosity of when it will be finally done.

Anyways, thanks for the laugh.

JoshFed · Post by **JoshFed** » Fri Jul 25, 2003 6:58 pm

Good turn out! Thanks for the wealth of information.

pmjdebruijn · Post by **pmjdebruijn** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 11:02 am

I might just be a plan to stick the old system hardware into your new(er) system and do the stage1,2,3 compile on the new system, it will save you a lot of time...

I'm doing the same thing right here...

I'm compiling the big stuff on a AMD Athlon 2200+ and when it's finished I'm going to transfer it to a AMD K6-2 366...

Do mind your CHOST and C(XX)FLAGS!!!

titan · Post by **titan** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 6:54 pm

I started installing Gentoo on my 500Mhz P!!! under VMWare, and bootstraping took 24 hours. After that, i just set teh gentoo drive as master, and I just got X up and running (I'm on 56k) and i started 3 days ago.

pmjdebruijn · Post by **pmjdebruijn** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 7:15 pm

I've tried VMWare too.... but even on new system VMWare is slow...

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I didn't even complete my VMWare attempt...

I mean it works! But it's mindbogling slow... at least comparing to installing on the same system without VMWare!

[SOLVED] Has anyone installed Gentoo on a PII 400?

[SOLVED] Has anyone installed Gentoo on a PII 400?

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