Gentoo and Netbook

alexx2005 · n00b Joined: 06 Jul 2013 Posts: 3 Location: Moscow, Russia

Hi all! :-)
So I've just been thinking,...
Although I'm really enjoying the obtained system, which is currently on a netbook with a amd e2 (something to compile with as desktop is being offline), I'm sometimes finding myself to feel sorry for forcing the lil guy to compile everything and heat up to 90 degrees, and so :-) Even though it's hardware and it's made to be used, the price is its lifespan, I guess? -- and so I've just been curious, what is people's view on the issue? :-)

Aiken · Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:35 am Post subject:

This thread reminded me my eeepc has not been updated for a bit.

I have a machine that is used as a build machine that makes binary packages. That way it and a few machines in a distcc cluster do the hard work and all the eeepc and laptop have to do is install binary packages. About the only thing the eeepc compiles locally is it's kernel.
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Kollin · Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:53 am Post subject:

Don't compile on the netbook. My eeepc died during one such update (motherboard got fried).

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Goverp · Advocate Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 2179

I used to compile on my eeepc, but after KDE and Open Office (as it was then) started taking about a day each, I changed to using distccd to compile on my desktop. Now I also use libreoffice-bin and google-chrome to cut the compilation load.

Distcc isn't a complete solution - dev-python/numpy doesn't survive cross-compiling on my AMD-based desktop, so I have a package.env entry to ensure it compiles locally.
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smartass · Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:03 am Post subject:

Compiling on netbooks is usually a bad idea because they usually have poor venting abilites.

If you don't have a bihnost, you could limit the frequency to the minimum via cpufreq and increase portage niceness and ioiniceness which would keep it at low temperatures while compiling at the expense of longer compilation times.

Long compilation times can be often avoided by updating every week and keeping the number of packages updated at a minimum. This doesn't save you from the likes of Qt and KDE being stabilized at once, but it helps.

alexx2005 · n00b Joined: 06 Jul 2013 Posts: 3 Location: Moscow, Russia

Thanks, I'm definitely using the desktop for compiling once it's up, then :-)

Speaking of venting, I've recently put the vacuum cleaner pipe next to its exhaust while make-ing X, the temperatures on sensors got like 30 degrees lower but that was a wild idea to see what happens... :-)

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 8:23 pm Post subject:

alexx2005,

Forcing air through the cooling system like that can easily destroy the fan bearings, as it will be 'windmilling' in the air stream much faster than its design speed.
Also, fast moving air generates a lot of static electricity, which can destroy any electronics it discharges to.

Don't worry too much about operating tempratures. It is an established fact that the random failure rate of electronic devices doubles for every 10 deg C rise in operating temperature.
So, it your netbook were to last 5 years running at 90C 24/7, it would last 10 years at 80C and 20 years at 70C.
However, random failures are only a part of the picture. Most electronics fails at switch on or switch off due to the power surges at that time.
Thermal cycling from stable off to stable on causes mechanical stresses which in turn lead to non random failures.
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alexx2005 · n00b Joined: 06 Jul 2013 Posts: 3 Location: Moscow, Russia

Ah, that's just --- couldn't agree more :-)

I totally missed or forgot about static in moving air

So it's always lifespan vs neat system, then, it seems :-)

Desktop is up, and has rather decent cooling, will need to repartition it and roll gentoo there now too, -- I wanted to use the desktop as workstation and sync it with the netbook's drive, as a double-sided backup. It started as an experiment because a friend of mine decided to roll arch and I didn't want to, so I rolled gentoo, and it was totally worth it, I'm maybe flattering a little but I totally liked it :-)

So, if the cpu is cooled better, then, it'd be safer to use its cycles to build the system and then roll it onto the netbook too, right?

LoTeK · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 270

eccerr0r · Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:04 pm Post subject:

I compile on my eeePC 900A (Atom N270, 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM) and use both threads. It's slow indeed but so far so good.
I also compile on my Geode GX1 (266MHz, 256MB) ... now you don't know slow unless you run on one of these...

Fortunately the GX1 doesn't get hot. At all.

Just that it takes forever and a half to finish compiling gcc.
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Kollin · Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 6:29 pm Post subject:

eccerr0r · Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:48 pm Post subject:

Was it the chipset that broke or cpu or can't tell?

I've compiled firefox on this machine multiple times already and this thing does get quite warm. Supposedly it is the 945 chipset that's the heat generator, but I haven't confirmed it. I suppose if I write some tight loop that fits entirely in cache it shouldn't touch the chipset and just bake the CPU...

Oh, my eeePC 900A (wow was about to write N900 which is a "newer to me" toy) is SSD-based, I had it replaced with a 32G mPCIe card. It's much faster than the dreadfully slow 4GB stock SSD - the replacement probably doesn't help the CPU from catching a cooldown once in a while as it waits for disk...

Kollin · Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 9:02 pm Post subject:

LoTeK · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 270

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 6:04 pm Post subject:

LoTeK,

The heat is a problem at the silicon level ... a case doesn't make much difference if the air in it is free flowing.
The problem is getting the heat out of the transistors. The most you can do to help is to cool the package somehow.

If there is a high junction to case thermal resistance, all you can do is keep the power down.
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

eccerr0r · Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 7:05 pm Post subject:

The only reason why I compile on my GX1 is because I'm too lazy to copy binaries to it, it's sure laziness to just run emerge --update --deep world on every one of my machines... I had been running a small hacked Gentoo install on this machine with no portage (due to it running on a 512MB CF disk) but I ended up simply not updating it due to laziness since it was so hard to update (as it has its own USE flags for its binaries that doesn't match any of my other machines). Now I upgraded it to a larger disk (2GB) and just run full portage on it.

Fortunately the GX1 doesn't seem to generate much heat, I've stuck my finger on the chip and I've never felt it heat up... Perhaps it's because I've never done this while it's compiling...

There's really no other reason why I should compile on this dastardly slow machine. In fact there are reasons why I shouldn't, really don't want it to crash, etc., plus its interactive performance goes down during the compile.

(I almost think this GX1, MHz for MHz, is about the speed of a 486. A PPro/P2 running at 266MHz is muuuuch faster... and I suspect a RISC CPU would also be fairly fast too.)
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Tolstoi · l33t Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 678

I compiled on my wife's Samsung NC10 for years until I got fed up with updating a KDE environment for over a day. It's running Arch now. The hardware survived so I can't say anything against it.

eccerr0r · Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 12:13 am Post subject:

Another successful emerge --update --deep world on my now 4 year old eeePC 900A :)
I really should just use binaries on this as well as the GX1...
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