Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone running a Netbook satisfactorily on Gentoo?

[Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>]

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Grant schrieb:
>>>> I've installed and updated Gentoo on my girlfriend's Acer Aspire One
>>>> netbook and it's just so slow.  The only things I can think of to
>>>> speed it up would be to upgrade the RAM from 1GB (not sure if that's
>>>> possible) and/or swap out the SSD for a HD.  Anyone running a netbook
>>>> not excruciatingly slow?
>>>>
>>>> - Grant
>>>>
>>> I've got an Acer One for my father. I don't know the exact type; it is
>>> the one with the 8GB SSD.
>>>
>>> I found it quiet usable, installed Gentoo with a minimal KDE3 on it.
>>> Compiled with -Os, of course. RAM usage is below 256MB most of the time.
>>> The only things I didn't get to work are 3D acceleration and the SSD
>>> card slots but I haven't invested much time into it.
>>>
>>> The slowest part of the system is the SSD. It really slows things done
>>> when they are loaded for the first time (for example the HTML part of
>>> Konqueror takes 3s to load AFTER Konqueror itself came up).
>>>
>>> The rest of the system is pretty fast for my expectations.I compiled
>>> most things in a chroot on my Celeron notebook (2 or 3 times the speed)
>>> before moving it over but I really found compiling not _that_ slow. Its
>>> usable for most regular updates and even kernels and such alike. For
>>> larger packages, I mount an NFS share on /var/tmp/portage because I
>>> don't want to wear down the SSD.
>>>
>>> Other tips:
>>> Use ext2 FS. You don't want the journalling to cost you even more
>>> performance and wear down the SSD.
>>>
>>> I wouldn't use laptop-mode. You don't want it to bog down the system
>>> when it decides to flush its write cache.
>>>
>>> No syslog, it will only wear down the disk with many small write cycles.
>>>
>>> Use the noop IO scheduler (boot parameter elevator=noop). There is no
>>> need for a scheduler on an SSD.
>>>
>>> ArchLinux also recommends deactivating DRI ('Option "DRI" "0"' in
>>> xorg.conf) to free up 32MB of memory.
>>>
>>> Hope this helps.
>> Thanks guys, these are the kinds of tips I need.  I really want this
>> thing to work out so I can switch over to one.  Lemme see if I've got
>> this:
>>
>> 1. run xfce4 (already do)
>> 2. compile with -Os (I was using -O2)
>> 3. use ext2 (I was using ext3)
>> 4. don't use laptop-mode (I didn't know it existed)
>> 5. no syslog (does this mean don't even emerge a system logger like metalog?)
>> 6. use elevator=noop at boot
>> 7. deactivate DRI
>> 8. upgrade RAM to the max
> 
> Which of these still apply when using a conventional HD instead of a
> SSD in the netbook?
> 
> - Grant
> 

1 and 2 really depend on your RAM and CPU performance. 2 even on the
software itself (for example bzip2 runs faster with -Os on my Celeron,
less cache misses, I presume; gzip and lzma do not).

3. can be neglected.

4. laptop-mode should definitely be used. It was designed especially for
this purpose.

5. still holds. However, with laptop-mode and certain settings ("options
{ sync(0) ;stats(1000); };" ) it should not do much harm.

6. should not be used. Any other scheduler should be better than noop
for real spinning disks.

7. still holds.

8. always a good idea. Especially with today's chip prices. The only
downside is that hibernating with TuxOnIce takes longer.


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