Porting a friend to Linux ;-)

yardbird · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2002 Posts: 689 Location: nl.leiden

Hi there,

I have a friend of mine who owns an old box he does not use anymore. Spec highlights:

- K6-2 200 MhZ
- 128 MB RAM
- Some GB HD (don't know exactly)
- two sound cards (!) one of which is an AWE64
- S3 4MB graphic card.

He's bringing the box here tomorrow. Being an old time Win user he finally decided to try linux, so I'm going to set the box up for him and then let him play with it. Of course the distro is going to be Gentoo :-)

I'm going to equip the box with a net card, start from stage 3 and then compile the rest with distcc (a Cel 800 and a AMD 2400XP are going to provide horsepower). Some random thoughts:

- reiserfs for HD speedup;
- kernel 2.6 for increased multi-tasking performance (I know it is still beta, but it has run very well on my machines for quite some time);
- -Os flag to minimize apps size and loading time;
- prelink;
- keep background services at min possible.

A question:

- any particular advice for K6-2 related CFLAGS? (ie flags known to be buggy, etc.)

The most important question: what about X and the like? I guess KDE and GNOME are much too bloated for that box. I was thinking about (flux)(open)...(*)box or waimea or kahkai (is it spelled so?), but for a first time user I'd go with something more user-friendly. So Xfce4 came to my mind. It's very nice. Plus I can build a GTK2-only system (which could mean Pan, Balsa (Evo is too big), some Gecko-based lightweight browser, Abiword, Gnumeric... throw in all the good GTK2 apps around). However XFce4 is still in rc-phase. I know it is already stable, however it is unlikely that my friend is gonna update the box very often (because of connectivity problems): if bugs pop up he is going to be on his own.

In conclusion: I need a fast, stable, lightweight, fully featured and user-friendly graphical environment. I'm asking the moon, aren't I

Thanks for your input, it is for a good cause (I'd really like linux to make a good first impression

)

scriptkiddie · l33t Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 955

hi,
Your friend would need quite a bit of ram to be able to handle a heavy weight like KDE or GNOME... running something like Fluxbox is a great idea.

I love kernel 2.6 and it pretty much all I use, but you are going to have to make sure the machine works properly before sending it back with your friend because 2.6 does have some bugs.

You most definently need to go with reiserFS

aardvark · Guru Joined: 30 Jun 2002 Posts: 576

Also consider xfce as a desktop

www.xfce.org

Genone · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:14 pm Post subject:

Remember for the CFLAGS/CHOST that the K6 is a 586, not a 686

nin_freak_ · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Posts: 110

just remember it's 586n ot 686, like others have said, use march=k6-2, and DO A STAGE1 INSTALL!, also, i've had some trouble with the 2.6 kernel on my k62, so i wouldn't recomend it, yet. but just emerge distcc before you do the stage 1 install stuff, and it goes by plenty fast, it works fine, i do it all the time. the weaker the machine, the more that optimization helps.

Stu L Tissimus · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 4:32 pm Post subject:

A stage 1 install on that machine would add on another day opr two to the installation time... >_<

Anyway, I think you should get your friend used to Fluxbox on your machine and see how he likes it. If he does, use Fluxbox. If he doesn't, use Xfce4.
_________________
old outdated sig

scriptkiddie · l33t Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 955

Stage1 would be the best way to go... but if your on a time constraint, go with stage 3 (stage 2 is sort of a pointless way to install, its only one command).

like "Stu L Tissimus" said... use Flux and see how he likes it... I have had some problems getting XFCE to run very well on some machines I use as servers, so be careful with it.

wilburpan · l33t Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 977

yardbird · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2002 Posts: 689 Location: nl.leiden

Thanks for all your replies

My friend did not bring here the box today, but he is going to tomorrow.

I thought of a Stage1 install disguised as a Stage3

The plan is: up and running with a Stage3, emerge distcc, and then emerge -e world before going further.

About DE issue: fluxbox would probably be the best bet for such a low end machine, however xfce would probably be much more user-friendly. I haven't decided yet, I guess I'll try flux first (less deps).

Anyway thanks for the input, your suggestions are greatly appreciated

nin_freak_ · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Posts: 110

you can do a stage 1 with distcc, you just have to edit some files

yardbird · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2002 Posts: 689 Location: nl.leiden

metalac · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2003 10:08 am Post subject:

I'm running blackbox on 166mhz Pentium with 96mb RAM. I doubt anything else would even load.
_________________
>>>>> Ignorance is bliss <<<<<

scriptkiddie · l33t Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 955

One thing I highly recommend is that you read a thread on this forum called Best Consolo Apps (or something like that)...
Maybe you should think about not including X.. the console works wonders if you learn your way around it