| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
EmperorofUnivrse
n00b
Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 58
|
 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:00 am Post subject: Gentoo on old computer? Need hardware advice |
 |
|
Hi guys,
My laptop died, and I recently acquired a Pentium 3 533Mhz with 128 megs of ram to tide me over. It has a 6gig hard drive.
Can this system run gnome or kde? Do I even have enough hard drive space to compile gnome/kde? (I am willing to wait for long compile times)
What optimizations do you recommend? I was thinking -Os and -fomit-frame-pointer, as well as -march=pentium3. Should I use -O2 or -O3 instead? I need as much as I can get out of this system, and I've heard good things about -Os in terms of overall performance and responsiveness.
One other question: is -Os compatible with LDFLAGS optimizations? I've never messed with LDFLAGS and figured I'd try it out this install.
Thanks for your thoughts. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
ChrisWhite
Retired Dev
Joined: 08 Jul 2004
Posts: 399
Location: Stockton, CA
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
Don't mess with LDFLAGS!
I have an 875mhz here, I recommend -Os, as it optimizes for size, and at the same time creates a faster load time (smaller size = less time to load to ram). I'd recommend gnome, heck, I'd even say xfce to be honest. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
quippy
n00b
Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 11
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| my fluxbox consumes about 60MB of RAM after boot without any apps i dont think you should install kde or gnome on such an old system... on the other hand i dont know for what you want to use ur laptop |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fangorn
Veteran
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1886
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
For modern kde or gnome I would not recommend under 256 MB RAM. Maybe it wil work, but as soon as you load any application it will swap. That is not fun at all.
All the *box window managers are a good choice or my favourite fvwm (with a reasonable amount of eye candy  ) and rox, filer, thunar, ... as graphical file manager. Maybe give XFCE a try, as it is designed for small footprint.
_________________
Video Encoding scripts collection | Project page |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JeliJami
Veteran
Joined: 17 Jan 2006
Posts: 1086
Location: Belgium
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Box 1:
| Code: | $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 6
model name : Celeron (Mendocino)
stepping : 5
cpu MHz : 501.235
cache size : 128 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr up
bogomips : 1003.10
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 186 174 11 0 15 78
-/+ buffers/cache: 80 105
Swap: 494 40 453
|
Box 2:
| Code: |
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : CentaurHauls
cpu family : 6
model : 7
model name : VIA Samuel 2
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 666.805
cache size : 64 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 de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow up
bogomips : 1334.52
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 368 345 22 0 21 206
-/+ buffers/cache: 117 250
Swap: 494 0 494
|
As you can see, both have a rather slow CPU.
But they are both running kde, smoothly 
That's probably because of well chosen USE flags.
You will need more RAM though; 128 will not suffice for Gnome or KDE
Make sure to check out http://www.gentoo-wiki.org/Safe_Cflags.
Good luck!
_________________
Unanswered Post Initiative | Search | FAQ
Former username: davjel |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
yngwin
Retired Dev
Joined: 19 Dec 2002
Posts: 4572
Location: Suzhou, China
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ChrisWhite wrote: | | Don't mess with LDFLAGS! |
Care to explain? As far as I understand this is a safe optimization:
I agree with the choice for -Os, so I'd go with:
| Code: | | CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -Os -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" |
You can try KDE of course, it would be interesting to see how much you can minimize it (-Os should help there). One plus is that Konqueror doubles as filemanager and browser. But you could be better off with xfce or fluxbox.
_________________
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln
Free Culture | Defective by Design | EFF |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
EmperorofUnivrse
n00b
Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 58
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I shouldn't have spoken It turns out I lost the bid from my universities surplus, but I think I might be getting a slightly better computer from my friend with 256 megs (still a P3).
When I make the system, I will go ahead and use -Os, but I don't understand the warning about LDFLAGS. I don't understand why isn't safe. I was under the impression it was. Could you please explain this or give me a reference?
Also, should I use -pipe when compiling? Isn't it a bad idea for low RAM systems? (Low RAM is kind of relative, I suppose 10 years ago 128 megs was a huge amount, and I don't know how long this has been around)
Thanks for your opinions. This box probably won't last long, I'll be building a Core 2 Duo soon! This community is awesome |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ChrisWhite
Retired Dev
Joined: 08 Jul 2004
Posts: 399
Location: Stockton, CA
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| yngwin wrote: | | ChrisWhite wrote: | | Don't mess with LDFLAGS! |
Care to explain? As far as I understand this is a safe optimization:
|
File a bug with modified LDFLAGS and see what happens  . I generally don't recommend LDFLAGS modifications if you're not ready to catch something when it goes wrong. More advanced users can propably pull it off, as they'll know what to do if something breaks. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dammital
Apprentice
Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 189
|
| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sorry your 128MB deal fell through, but you'll be much happier at 256MB.
Yes, I would have recommended -Os (and "optimize for size" in your kernel config) with that 128MB box. Contrary to other posters above, I successfully ran GNOME on such a machine for a couple of years. Load times for large applications were miserable, and very large web pages were slow to compose, but otherwise the system was usable.
And yes, 6GB is enough to compile with. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
lennert
n00b
Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 49
Location: netherlands
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
Runnin kde and stuff on a celeron 433 with 256mb ram is acceptable I think. It will take quite some compiling so use openoffice-bin and look at wiki for the CFLAGS of your system.
_________________
'nkee? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DOSBoy
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 26 Jun 2005
Posts: 84
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
My recommendation for the desktop: wmii.
Takes some getting used to, but I find I'm much mor efficient with it than with a full DE like gnome or kde. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Installing Gentoo
