On 28 Sep 2003, at 4:32 pm, Jess Anderson wrote:
I'm about to make the Big Switch, i.e., from RedHat [1] to Gentoo Linux...
Congratulations!!!
...am just now looking for clarification about differences between the various 2-CD sets offered by the store.
I haven't used any of these CDs, but looking at what it says: "2-CD set with many pre-built packages... optimized for <insert architecture of your choice here>".
I have only 1 question: who decided that all (& only) the Mac Gentoo CDs would have pictures of girly pink flowers on them..?
I have a mix of six machines on my home LAN, including a Pentium Pro, two Pentium IIIs (one a laptop), an Athlon Tbird and two Athlon XPs. All at present run RH 7.2, kept fully up to date.
I think the "Gentoo Linux 1.4 for i686" set would be best, then. It's "optimized for P6-class (Pentium Pro/II, Celeron 266-533MHz, original Athlon) CPUs" and all your machines should run those optimisations fine.
The verbiage about gentoo CD sets includes "packages optimized for <x> platform". My assumption is that this means chiefly the kernel. Is that correct, or are other optimzations also involved?
I would guess that is incorrect. I would guess it means chiefly the packages (applications). If you read the installation guide at <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml> you'll see that compiling the kernel is part of the standard Gentoo install.
I'm not so familiar with these CDs as the download editions of Gentoo, but the stuff that these CDs are best known for is the pre-compiled binaries of GDE, Knome, OpenOffice &c &c. These take FAR longer to compile than the kernel does, so I would imagine that it is the former that are optimised, rather than the latter.
http://www.freehackers.org/gentoo/gccflags/flag_gcc3.html (and I daresay `man gcc`) hints at the sort of optimisatons that Gentoo / Portage is principally about (alongside optional run-time functionality) when compiling applications.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/7882 & http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=24849 suggest that little opimisation will take place when compiling the kernel (although there is a section in `make menuconfig` to choose a processor - I don't know what difference it makes).
I further assume I could get any of the x86-compatible CD sets and compile optimized kernels for whatever platform (in which case it seems reasonable to get the Athlon XP set). Is this correct as well?
Hmmmn... dunno. I would *ass*u*me that the Gentoo installation disks which are merely _optimised_ for AlthlonXPs would allow you to install on a PentiumPro, but I wouldn't bank on it. The 686 disks will certainly allow you to compile (& optimise) for ALL i86 architectures, tho'.
I'm an experienced Linux user, but not a kernal compilation whiz, so am looking at "what's easiest" as compared to "what's best".
Stage 3 x86 on all machines, optimised CFLAGS & USE flags on each one, `make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install && /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot`, don't forget stuff with grub & /etc/fstab, reboot then `emerge sync && emerge -up world` & leave 'em all compiling for a week or so (it saves on heating bills).
HTH,
Stroller.
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