From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 27316 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2004 15:35:38 +0000 Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (128.193.0.39) by eagle.gentoo.oregonstate.edu with DES-CBC3-SHA encrypted SMTP; 5 Mar 2004 15:35:38 +0000 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([128.193.0.34] helo=eagle.gentoo.org) by smtp.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AzHMQ-0003as-IG for arch-gentoo-alpha@lists.gentoo.org; Fri, 05 Mar 2004 15:35:38 +0000 Received: (qmail 21061 invoked by uid 50004); 5 Mar 2004 15:35:37 +0000 Mailing-List: contact gentoo-alpha-help@gentoo.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org Received: (qmail 28704 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2004 15:35:37 +0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5.6944.0 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 10:35:34 -0500 Message-ID: X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: [gentoo-alpha] Gentoo Alpha questions Thread-Index: AcQCw8/Nl4SB75hcSNOlOtPdj8DxVAAAIsDQ From: "Donsbach, Jeff" To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jean-S=E9bastien_Guay?= Cc: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Mar 2004 15:35:36.0323 (UTC) FILETIME=[813D1D30:01C402C7] Subject: RE: [gentoo-alpha] Gentoo Alpha questions X-Archives-Salt: 3d8b1db9-8dca-4edb-b0aa-da11171ae7de X-Archives-Hash: b4e5657f7bde7e90fa79832bbc3ac92f Jean-Sebatien, I too have an XL-366 and just recently went through the Gentoo install. = It was not all the difficult. If you are already running a 2.4 kernel, = it will be pretty easy. That was my biggest hurdle in that I has still = been running on old 2.2.19 kernel. Yes, you can custom build things for your machine type (ev56). I have = already noticed that it does seem a bit snappier than before. I had been = running Red Hat 6.2 (ancient I know). How I went about it is I basically = installed the system stuff (/, /usr, /var ) to an unused partition. Then = I followed the instructions on the gentoo site for "Installing from a = running system". Basically, you start by untarring one of the "stages" = (I started with Stage 1) to your new partition and then doing a "chroot" = to that from the running system. Then you kick off the bootstrap = process. Starting from Stage 1, I think my system ran almost all night = building things. The process would probably be faster if you started = from a higher stage or tried an install from the LiveCD (a new image for = that was offered up last week by Jay Maynard). As for Perl performance, I haven't done enough Perl work to say whether = the performance difference in using a "-mcpu ev56" build flag is = noticeable or not. Apache 2 installs without a hitch. I did have a problem building Samba = last week though, which I haven't had time to chase down yet. I'm = getting some duplicate/conflicting symbol definitions in two header = files. One thing I did notice is that the "vanilla-sources" kernel source tree = does not seem to obey the Portage build flags for machine type that I = had set. It still built an "ev5" kernel even though I had set "-mcpu = ev56" build flags for Portage. I looked at it a little bit and it looked = like a few tweaks to the kernel source Makefiles would fix that problem. = It may already be fixed in one of the other kernel trees (alpha-sources = and/or compaq-sources for instance). I didn't look however. I have also installed the sshd daemon and that works fine too. I have = not tied fetchmail, or SpamAssassin yet. However, I "force built" Zope = 2.6.4 (it was not marked to build on alpha in the Portage tree) and so = far that too seems to be working too. I haven't worked with Debian/apt a lot, but in the respects you mention, = it sounds very similar. Portage will download and build necessary = dependencies as well. I did find that the Portage tree (/usr/portage) = did start eating up space rather quickly (I have some pretty small = disks) and I ended up moving it to a partition of it's own.=20 Keep posting questions as you hit them. Jeff D -----Original Message----- From: Jean-S=E9bastien Guay [mailto:jean_seb@videotron.ca]=20 Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:09 AM To: Gentoo-Alpha Mailing List Subject: [gentoo-alpha] Gentoo Alpha questions Hello, I am thinking of moving from Debian to Gentoo on my home server, which = is an Alpha XL-366 (xlt milo image). The machine currently runs Apache2, = ssh, fetchmail and procmail with spamassassin and clamav to filter = unwanted mails, a simple firewall script (iptables, with nat and = masquerading for my networked machines, can be found at http://www.asgardsrealm.net/linux/firewall/) and acts as a file server = using Samba. I have a few questions to ask of people who have been using = Gentoo on Alpha for a while. 1. I heard that the fact that you can compile everything for your = machine type, with all the necessary optimisations, makes a nice = difference in system speed. How true is it? Can someone with a similar = setup to my own comment on that? I'm especially hoping that Perl will = see a nice speedup, since I do lots of Perl coding in my free time, and = spamassassin is written in Perl too and currently takes about 3-5 = seconds per message. 2. Will the transition from Debian to Gentoo be painful? I'm especially = worried about getting everything to work the same as it did on Debian as = fast as possible. As you can see above, the whole home network depends = on this machine... 3. Also, how do you think the transition from apt to portage will be? = I'm wondering if it's similar to apt, in the sense that you can download = updates (new versions) to currently installed software and install them = automatically (compiling as needed, I guess). Thanks in advance, ________________________________________________ Jean-S=E9bastien Guay jean_seb@videotron.ca http://whitestar02.webhop.org/ -- gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list -- gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list