Re: [gentoo-user] new 2 gentoo

[Michael Crute]

On 9/16/05, Mario Carugno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hi there, i'm curious about Gentoo. Installation needs some compilation ?

I ask because i want to try Gentoo on an old 40MB Pentium I / 120mhz, and if

some compilation is needed, i could forget it.

 

Is Gentoo suited for such old computers ?

 

Thank you all.

If you have the patience go for it. A machine that old isn't good for too much except perhaps a router or simple home networking server but for those applications it should do really well. The trick to doing this though is to have a much faster machine where you can do all the compilation and then copy it over to the slower computer.

 

I just finished doing something like this. You have to have a decent sized hard drive in a fast computer then create a directory on your disk, unzip an official stage into it, chroot yourself inside that directory and do the Gentoo install as if you where working on the slow computer. Be careful to make sure you set all your compiler options and use flags etc... up for the P1 and not the faster computer. Once you have the system setup exactly the way you want it take snapshot of the folder (I just made a tbz2 archive). Then you will need to format and partition the disk on the P1 and unzip your new "stage" onto the drive. Install your favorite bootloader and reboot. Very simple. Then you can either toss your chrooted system on your fast computer or use it as a build environment to make binary packages for the old system.

 

The whole point is that I would never, ever, compile that much software on an old machine due to how much time you will sit around waiting for it to finish (think weeks). But what you want to do is very doable and kind of fun once you get it done. Perhaps I have a sick concept of fun but its neat to make use of old hardware that nothing better that Win 3.1 would run on.

 

-Mike

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________________________________
Michael E. Crute
Software Developer
SoftGroup Development Corporation

Linux, because reboots are for installing hardware.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?"