list of all possible CHOST values, non-ambiguous description

[farrenheit]

I am a newcomer to Gentoo, wanted the extreme performance and customization advertised.

I have followed the stage1 installation instructions and am now at the bottom of section 5: Installing the Gentoo Installation Files.

I am at the part where it talks about configuring /etc/make.conf, and not proceeding until I have a make.conf that I feel fits me. I'm stuck because I can't find a list of all valid CHOST values.

I've read man pages for portage's make.conf, and I've read it said that the Gentoo Handbook has a list of all CHOST values, but I can't find that list. I look in the gcc handbook for target machine types, and they don't have any values like:

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

instead, they only have values like: i386, i486, i586, i686, pentium, pentium-mmx, pentiumpro, pentium2, pentium3, pentium4, k6, k6-2, k6-3, athlon, athlon-tbird, athlon-4, athlon-xp and athlon-mp. They don't have any cpu values mixed with "pc" or "linux" or "gnu" in there, so I don't know if I can just put random words into the CHOST as I wish, like:

CHOST="amd64-pc-core2-quadcore-linux-gentoo-whatever"?

[Jaglover]

CHOST has to match your architecture, you can't make up custom CHOST's.

i686-pc-linux-gnu for 32-bit Intel
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu for 64-bit

[farrenheit]

thank you. so, other than these 2 options, there are no more for CHOST?

[farrenheit]

i think i understand better now:

so CHOST is not really a value to be set by user so much as it will be set automatically later in the installation, and should only be changed in unusual circumstances.

[krinn]

[krinn]

CHOST depend on what your cpu can do.
some cpu can use multi CHOST, but one or two generally are the best for your cpu.

for example a core2 cpu could use: i486-pc-linux-gnu, i586-pc-linux-gnu, i686-pc-linux-gnu and x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

but i would say, it you just fail to pickup the right livecd to boot, well, easy, your livecd won't boot, so you can't really do that.
and if you pickup a livecd that your cpu can boot, you've find one your cpu could handle.
and so, just emerge --info and look how the livecd set the CHOST, and reuse it.

if for example you pickup the x86 livecd and your chost show i686-pc-linux-gnu where you want to use 64bits then you will need the x86_64 (amd64) livecd to get it.

So, pickup the right livecd and don't care about your CHOST, just emerge --info from the livecd and use that one (and i suppose the default make.conf from the livecd might already have this set right for you).

[Hu]

[Jaglover]

[Genone]

Just don't set CHOST in make.conf at all, rely on the profile to set the right value.