From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LPKbM-0004Mh-KB for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:41:25 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 88415E04C7; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wf-out-1314.google.com (wf-out-1314.google.com [209.85.200.168]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32FCBE04C7 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wf-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 29so3806804wff.10 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:38:33 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=UTY/ZKU9116wmuN5jqPS0l/gc9M1jDAtbQwtI3Qq7t0=; b=Sh52dfggLZqrIMh2liWNJbwCnOOI9wD/m8/06AFq6Il3rJQrB77ryIGM8fd7TnuaON F7Ww4NJ+wO3g9v2w8ZX7nQId2n0dEEzrHbFDBdmm8tzaJ+LpaltTO/sm0sI1HxwwyKfE GxSFe4iB/H33yfYE73n8VcsrohN0xV/ACQdfc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :references; b=L2pnkrpLPHJ3sJ4T7kv2J6qwk3OIfVX5MOtDYKOnhf1LEcAPnrsGDHzqvxkjwN6zVw VfAA7b/AdzPC4M1diVCBV5q4NSwlyrd5OBeYw/zi70iT/MveqxRrUCrIIiyh0eO4Txbf npFGYhBlTD7A8TiyZ5AwJwgNu5WO1bRMb7k+s= Received: by 10.142.84.5 with SMTP id h5mr2941785wfb.200.1232473113844; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:38:33 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.142.217.11 with HTTP; Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:38:33 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <5bdc1c8b0901200938y7b7faff1lc4aba77987f783d7@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:38:33 -0800 From: "Mark Knecht" To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Tips/Tricks for Gentoo on low-spec computer? In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: X-Archives-Salt: 5f3a1034-6849-4b06-b07e-5a4064162920 X-Archives-Hash: 540ef903968af24e39b072ee2ddd7eb6 On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 8:46 AM, Grant Edwards wrote: > I'm in the process of installing Gentoo on a rather old > machine. It's an old HP Pavilion with a 450MHz Celeron > Mendocino and 256MB of PC133 SDRAM. I'm using an nVidia PCI > FX6200 video board instead of the i810 on-board chip, and it's > got a decent hard drive (160GB). > > I was wondering if there were any particular tips/tricks for > getting the best performance out of such a machine. It's to be > used for basic word processing and a few games. Hopefully the > nVidia 6200 will allow OpenGL to run fast enough for something > like TuxRacer. > > I chose XFCE for the desktop along with both Abiword and > OpenOffice. I probably should have installed OOo from a binary > package, but I decided to build it just to see how long it > would take (so far it's at about 26 hours and counting). > > -- > Grant Edwards grante Yow! I just remembered > at something about a TOAD! > visi.com Grant, We used to use a machine very similar to the one you discuss as a Gentoo desktop machine. I built Gnome and it worked fine. I personally like fluxbox which is a very light environment. Currently it's operating as my main mythbackend server with two PVR cards in it. Still going strong. The one thing I would respectfully suggest is that you carefully build your own portage overlay. My experience with Gentoo over the last few years is that there is a _anxiousness_ in the portage maintainer area to move newer revisions of software into portage quickly and then just as quickly to remove from portage what users are currently using. This forces folks to build more often and on a machine like you are talking about that can be fairly painful. There's no harm in masking higher revisions of software. The only issue I've run into is eix-test-obsolete telling me I have something installed that's no longer in portage. However with your own portage overlay I beleive you could get beyond this. I don't personally use the portage tools for building binary backups of packages - and probably I should. You might look at that also. Good luck, Mark