My Gentoo Installation (Work in Progress)
I've finally decided to really dedicate myself to learning Linux and using Linux more than I currently do. The first step is taking the main computer (my laptop) that I use all the time and converting it from Windows XP to Gentoo.
Laptop Specs
Dell Inspiron 6400
Intel T7400 - Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz
1GB of RAM
60GB Hard Drive
ATI X1400 Video Card
Conexant HDA D110 MDC V.92 Modem
Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Contoller
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Standard SD Host contoller (Secure Digital Card)
SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec
Intel USB2 Enhanced Host Controller
So, I started doing this research to figure out some common things that I'm going to have to know when I do my gentoo installation based on these specs. So far I've determined, thanks to the help of #gentoo on irc.freenode.net that i'll need to use the following for my processor to take full advantage of it. Special Thanks to FunnyMan3595 for his help!
Code:
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
USE Flags = mmxext sse2
It was suggested to use -march=prescott because it 'might' be faster, however Intel recommends -march=nocona. I found that prescott was origionally suggested in a gentoo forums debate for core duo processors. Since then Core 2 Duo has come out and it's recommended nocona. Another note I found was "As of GCC 4.3, you can set -march to "core2". This also enables the SSSE3 instruction set, also new in 4.3. However, gcc 4.3 is only available in the gentoo 'toolchain' overlay and given it's stability level (pre-alpha) you'd be mad to use that right now."
You can continue to watch the
Gentoo Safe_Cflags page for updates.
From here I'm going to continue my research on other applications I plan to run and what flags or options I'll need to use to customize my system for the best performance. More to come....
Suggestions from others...
Nastjuid from #gentoo on Efnet told me to check into tmpfs and parallel-fetch on the gentoo-wiki. Here is what I found.
tmpfs -
[/url]http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Speeding_up_portage_with_tmpfs
parallel-fetch - When you are emerging a series of packages, Portage can fetch the source files for the next package in the list even while it is compiling another package, thus shortening compile times. To make use of this capability, add "parallel-fetch" to your FEATURES.
USE="X dbus samba cups hal avahi alsa svg gtk exo panel-plugin thunar-vfs spell xml -gnome -kde -qt"
cat /etc/portage/package.use | grep xfce
xfce-extra/exo python
xfce-base/xfdesktop plugins
xorg-x11, xgl, xfce, beryl
deface from #gentoo on EFnet - USE="bzip2 X tk threads symlink jpeg png gif pdf xml ldap kerberos \
xinerama cdr dts dvdread dv dvdr dvd xine win32codecs mp3 mpeg alsa \
oss gstreamer mad asf gd gtk2 gtk bitmap-fonts \
truetype-fonts type1-fonts dbus avi live matroska mpeg oggvorbis real \
theora xanim xcomposite mpd audacious samba qt3 qt4 ogg flac xosd \
java gphoto2 scanner quicktime mplayer opengl rdesktop ssl \
vcd xinetd msn aac"
quannum from #gentoo on EFnet - USE="3dnow -acl alsa -arts gif gtk gtk2 -ipv6 jpeg -kde -qt -ldap -mikmod mmx mp3 opengl nptl png sse tiff -samba vorbis X"
Gentoo-Xeffects -
[url=http://wiki.gentoo-xeffects.org/Main_Page#XGL]http://wiki.gentoo-xeffects.org/Main_Page#XGL
Gentoo nox
fdisk /dev/sda
1. N, P, 1, (Hit enter), +100MB
2. N, p, 2, (Hit enter), +512MB, t, 2, 82
3. N, p, 3, (hit enter), (hit enter)
4. W
mke2fs /dev/sda1
mke2fs -j /dev/sda3
mkswap /dev/sda2 && swapon /dev/sda2
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
date 011721332007
cd /mnt/gentoo
mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sdb1-t vfat /mnt/usb
cp /mnt/usb/gentoo/stage* /mnt/gentoo/
time tar xjpf stage3*
cd /mnt/gentoo/usr
cp /mnt/usb/gentoo/portage* /mnt/gentoo/usr/
time tar xjf portage*
cd /
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
Configuring the Compile Options
nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
1. CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
2. CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
3. MAKEOPTS="-j3"
4. FEATURES=”parallel-fetch”
5. Add any other settings that customize your system!
cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
env-update && source /etc/profile
passwd
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
date
cd /etc
echo "127.0.0.1 GFS.MYDOMAIN.LOCAL GFS localhost" > hosts
sed -i -e 's/HOSTNAME.*/HOSTNAME="GFS"/' conf.d/hostname
hostname GFS
#hostname
emerge --sync
nano -w /etc/locale.gen
delete all but
en_US ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
locale-gen
time emerge gentoo-sources
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
make && make modules_install
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel
cd /etc
nano -w fstab
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults,noatime 1 2
/dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext3 noatime 0 1
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,ro 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0
cd conf.d
rc-update add net.eth0 default
rc-update add sshd default
time emerge syslog-ng
rc-update add syslog-ng default
emerge dhcpcd
emerge grub
nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf
add to grub.conf
- default 0
- timeout 30
- splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
- title=Gentoo Linux 2.6
- root (hd0,0)
- kernel /boot/kernel root=/dev/hda3
grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
quit
exit
umount /mnt/gentoo/proc /mnt/gentoo/boot /mnt/gentoo /mnt/usb
USE="X alsa gtk gtk2 rdesktop win32codecs mp3 mpeg bzip2 jpeg png pdf bitmap-fonts truetype-fonts avi dbus mpeg quicktime"
<deface> mechtn: i'd also add truetype & xft to your use flags
installed ufed to help me pick my use flags
emerge ufed
Also used this website to help me.
[/url][url=http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/use-index.xml]http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/use-index.xml
ermege ufed
emerge xorg-x11
emerge
emerge mozilla-firefox-bin
emerge rdesktop
emerge kuroo
emerge xchat
emerge xdm
had to make some changes to add xdm into the picture
nano -w /etc/rc.conf
XSESSION="startxfce4"
DISPLAYMANGER="xdm"
then had to restart xdm
/etc/init.d/xdm restart
rc-update add xdm default