Gentoo - Hopefully almost done!

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blackedge

Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2002
Messages
536
Wow.. What a debacle!

I've spent most of my weekend compiling Gentoo on my Sun Ultra 10. Current specs for the box are UltraSparc IIi 333 MHz processor (think I got that right), 256 MB of RAM (looking to increase) and a 20 GB HD (also looking to add another). Using onboard NIC and video for the moment.

Spent pretty much all of Saturday going through the compiling of Stage 1. Doesn't looks like any problems so far. I know it was at least 10 hours of compiling before I finally went to bed, but would imagine it did probably a good 12 hours of compiling. All that for the bootstrap. lol.. It's been fun though.

Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day compiling the core OS components. Not exactly sure how long it took, but it had been running for a couple of hours before I left to go out for a while. Got home, saw that it was done, and was like "cool". Downloaded and compiled the kernel. That gave me some shitfits, so I scratched it and did it again. Didn't feel like waiting so I went to bed.

So now, as of this morning, it appears the kernel is compiled (and configured according to how I wanted it done), so we'll play with trying to finish getting it setup when I get home. I'm sure there's tons more compiling that needs to be done though, so I'm hoping to have it up and functional as an alternate desktop by Tuesday.

What a fiasco it has been. I had no idea it would take this long, but I'm learning a lot in the process, so I'm not regretting it.

Just figured I'd share. It's been quite the experience.

Just wondering how many of you Gentoo guys have compiled from Stage 1 (I used the LiveCDs), and how long it took on what kind of hardware. Just rough estimates. :D

Cheers!
 
I installed from stage 1 but I don't remember exactly how long it took. No more than a couple days to get all the core stuff(os stuff, xfree, kde,...). It's nice. Had 14 days uptime going but I had to put in a hard drive last night. :( Oh yeah it's an athlon xp 2200+ on an asus a7n8x deluxe with 512 megs ram.
 
Well, it took me 2 days on my NF7-S/2400+/512 Meg RAM to do a Stage1 to have Linux up with KDE and everything. I have been struggling through getting iptables to work, but have fixed that. I just updated my machine from KDE 3.1.4 to 3.1.5 (emerge -U world) and haven't noticed any difference. It took quite a long time to update that.

Of course, some speed depends on you flags in your make.conf.
 
Well, Gentoo was my first linux experience ever and it was on a Sunblade 150(sun4u) and i didn't know what i was doing, luckly the docs were great...only took me a week and a half....only had a couple hours each day though. Finally got everything working great though. Love Gentoo.
 
It basically took me a weekend from a stage 1 install. I have a dual PIII 1 gig system with 384MB of RAM.

But I blew away my install now to install Freebsd 5.2 and it doesn't like my USB keyboard/mouse setup. Damnit. back to the drawing board. :D
 
for actual compile time, i left it on overnight for the bootstrap, system emerge and xfree emerge. So none of those took any more than maybe 8 hours, probably x was a lot less. (p4a 2ghz 512 800mhz rdram)
kernel compile only takes about 10 minutes, the longest time is just going through the menuconfig.
i was actually amazed the most at how long mozilla and firebird took to compile. Mozilla went on for maybe 3 hours and firebird about 1.5 for firebird. But it was definatly worth it :D
 
From what i've found installing it on my machines, it installs alot faster on Intel machines than AMD. Probably because Intel processors have a larger cache for compiling all that data.
 
Interesting to see all the compile times! I have the core OS done now, so it's a fully functioning stand alone box. And boy am I glad that's done. Now I'm working on compiling the GUI (going to use KDE for now), got that started around 6pm last night, and when I left for work this morning (about 7:30am), it was still going. Of course I emerge'd it so it's taking care of all dependencies too.

It'll be nice to have an alternate desktop machine now, something other than Winbloze..

Looking forward to this new AMD box though. As it stands now, it's going to be an AMD XP 2500+ Barton (still need to buy), 512 MB RAM (can't remember what I bought), on a DFI AD77 Infinity mobo (getting it dirt cheap). Trying to figure out though if I want to upgrade graphics cards and put the one in my main box now in there, or just get a POS card for this box. But, this one will be running Gentoo as well once I get all the pieces I need for it and get it built. I think I'm gonna do a build from Stage 1 on it as well, mostly for shits and giggles.

And once it's built, it'll be another box folding for the [H]orde! Yay!
 
Please don't flame me for asking this, but why would you want to spend days compiling an OS when you could use one already compiled, and just install it? It just seems like a large waste of time, but then I'm a total noob when it comes to Linux. I just want to understand :)
 
It teaches you alot about Linux during the setup, so you have some control over how it installs. You set your compile flags for you optimization preference. If all you want to do it just run Linux, then source based isn't your thing. I find it a great learning experience as opposed to the gui install that you answer questions to.

The installation is mostly waiting for you machine to compile the software.
 
Originally posted by cuemasterfl
Please don't flame me for asking this, but why would you want to spend days compiling an OS when you could use one already compiled, and just install it? It just seems like a large waste of time, but then I'm a total noob when it comes to Linux. I just want to understand :)
Click to expand...
Gotta have a hobby. My time isn't all that valuable. If I wan't working on my computer I would probably just be doing something stupid like watching tv or studying. :D
 
Well, I have built *many* machines from a stage1 and I can tell you that compile times vary widely based on USE flags and CFLAGS. Personally, I build very compact machines with only the exact options I need, so my compile times are usually quite low. Add SMP, distcc, ccache, and U320 SCSI drives to the mix and you have very fast compiles.

I can't remember how long it took me to do a completebuild from stage1, but an "emerge -e world" takes about 14 hours on my Dual Athlon 2200+ system, without distcc/ccache enabled.
 
Well, considering that my current Gentoo box is my primary desktop box (yet), it wasn't a big deal to compile it from scratch. Plus, as mentioned by others, there's the learning experience thing too. Linux is so ridiculously vast, so much to learn, it's fun just to experience it, methinks.

I'm not very good with optimizations yet, but I'm learning. I think the only USE flag I used was -java, and that's only I think. I may not have used that flag.

I'm thinking that I might try a Stage One install on my other Sun box, which is a SPARCstation 20... Dual 60 Mhz processors! Yeah baby! :D

But, I'm anxious to do it on the AMD box I'm building. Just gotta get the money to finish building it. :( Anyone wanna donate towards it? ;)
 
yep compiling the OS from scratch a def learning experience.

Also the one thing I hated with RedHat an dMandrake was the /etc dir was full of cr@p.
I installed Gentoo and it had in it only what I wanted it in - it is soo clean.

Also most progs (for RH/MDK) come compiled with things like kde/../.. in the prog thus you need those libs to run .With gentoo you can specify what included libs to use or not to use.

Plus anyway it kinda addictive waiting for a
#emerge sync
to finish and then seeing what is new in a
#emerge world -uvDp

or does that just show I am a geek???
 
I installed Gentoo from Stage 1 on my Sparc 10, not ultra, just a SparcServer 10. I do have 384MB RAM and a ROSS HyperSparc 133 so it is a little better than most Sparc 10s.

It took me about 1 week to get through the install. I think the bootstrap took 2 days, but I can not remember exactly now.
 
Originally posted by cuemasterfl
Please don't flame me for asking this, but why would you want to spend days compiling an OS when you could use one already compiled, and just install it? It just seems like a large waste of time, but then I'm a total noob when it comes to Linux. I just want to understand :)
Click to expand...

Well because we can! Is the biggest reason. Yes you can get a few optimizations and such, however for my reasons it is more for the experience of doing it.

I run Gentoo on my laptop, and my Mail/web server at home. However the Sparc experience was just to do it.
 
Originally posted by m1abram
I installed Gentoo from Stage 1 on my Sparc 10, not ultra, just a SparcServer 10. I do have 384MB RAM and a ROSS HyperSparc 133 so it is a little better than most Sparc 10s.

It took me about 1 week to get through the install. I think the bootstrap took 2 days, but I can not remember exactly now.
Click to expand...

Looks like Gentoo has MS beat. 1 week to install vs. 1 hour.
 
Originally posted by shade91
Looks like Gentoo has MS beat. 1 week to install vs. 1 hour.
Click to expand...

What you talkin bout Willis?

Try 1 week vs never on that architecture.

And, I can guarantee you that it wouldn't be nearly as bad if he wasn't compiling from scratch on an older than dirt Sun workstation.
 
Depends on your use flag, how long it takes to compile. AMD 1800+ nforce 1 mobo took me about 18hours to compile everything from 2.6.0 stage1.

Hope if your going to use your computer as a desktop box, you can use 2.6.x kernel, much faster :D
 
Originally posted by shade91
Looks like Gentoo has MS beat. 1 week to install vs. 1 hour.
Click to expand...

What in the world are you talking about? Your not even comparing apples to oranges here bud!

I compiled every part of the OS and support applications from scratch, hell it even included compiling the compiler. Also this is a computer built in 1994.

I have also installed NetBSD on this machine, and that install was on the order of about an hour. Actually lot easier than my last XP install.

I did the Gentoo install on the Sparc, to see if I could. But if I wanted an OS on it quickly that works well I would use NetBSD on the old Sparcs.
 
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