Downgrading Hardware (Changing CHOST)

Influence · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 7

Hi there!

Untily recently I've secured my wireless network using IPSEC, but now since I've switched to a WPA2 capable access point, my Pentium 2-350 seems grossly oversized and idles most of his time.

Therefore I'm planning to move my internet gateway to an old dell featuring a 133 megahertz pentium. Now I would very much like to keep my 2 year old gentoo installation whichs just runs perfectly ever since.

So to get there i need to change my CFLAGS from
"-march=pentium2 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" to
"-march=pentium -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

change my cpu in the kernel config

and my CHOST from
"i686-pc-linux-gnu"
to
"i586-pc-linux-gnu", right?

Then recompile everything using --emptytree and move the harddisk to my old dell.

Only problem is: As far as I know I just can't change CHOST without breaking everything, so what's the right way to do this? Or is this just not possible?

Thanks for your help,
Influence

majk · Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:24 pm Post subject:

Maybe right option for processor is "-march=pentium-mmx" or something
like that. Try "man make.conf".

I think you must recompile all installed packages (non binary) when changing CHOST,
wouldn't this be a nightmare on 166Mhz processor?

Influence · n00b Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 7

adsmith · Veteran Joined: 26 Sep 2004 Posts: 1386 Location: NC, USA

unless you have a more modern high-powered machine to do the compiling for your older machines and if this is just an internet gateway/router, then just go grab a binary distribution custom made for firewalling, etc. No sense spending 3 weeks compiling....

i92guboj · Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:50 pm Post subject:

Just a note, the man page to check info about architectures and the like is the gcc man page. make.conf man page is about the layout of that file, but have no specific info about archs and so.

Also, I agree with adsmith. I would put something like red hat into that box. There is no point into customizing a machine that you will never play with.