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Original post by C-Junkie
Ignore the crap about compiling. Gentoo''ers always think this does something special, but it won''t help.

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In most cases, it does little or nothing. There are a few significant places it does really help:
Base libraries (glibc, etc.)
OpenOffice
Mozilla
Some other large programs

There''s no real point compiling on a P2 since 1) It''s too close to x86 to really matter, and 2) You''re going to spend well into fall if you compile everything

Back to the point, I never thought XFree86 was quite as efficient as, say, the older Win95 and NT4 desktop environments. I think you should try either the love or mm patched 2.4 kernels. Their I/O schedulers are much nicer than the vanilla (don''t know about Con Koliva). Also you''ll probably want to fall back to Ext3 (not ext2, since it''s not journaled). You''ll lose some harddrive performance, but you''ll gain CPU back.

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Original post by seanw
This might sound a bit stupid, but if you use this computer for everything, don''t you think upgrading would drastically improve your computing experiences? It might cost you money, but having to take routes like compiling packages from scratch and micromanaging your kernal configuration costs you time too. I''m quite careful with my money, but seeing as I use my computer all the time, it''s a good way to spend it. How much better would it be if you could just use the applications you wanted to use?

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Definitely upgrading my comp would be great... but i really don''t have the money. I''ve got some other expenses (with study, mainly), that doesn''t leave me with enough money to buy a computer yet. Maybe in a couple of months things will be better.

Anyway, at work i don''t use my computer, so i only use my computer for personal stuff/projects.

And i''m definitely not going to compile everything i want to install... i don''t think it''s worth the time compiling. But optimizing the kernel is ok if you''re on vacations, since you only do it once

Thanks for all the replies so far guys,
Victor.

You might want to try compiling *just* the kernel and base libraries yourself, and see if that helps. Actually, avoid messing with the base libraries, just the kernel. It might help, it might not. A kernel is a relatively short compile anyway.

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Original post by Promit

quote:

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Original post by C-Junkie
Ignore the crap about compiling. Gentoo'ers always think this does something special, but it won't help.

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In most cases, it does little or nothing. There are a few significant places it does really help:
Base libraries (glibc, etc.)
OpenOffice
Mozilla
Some other large programs

There's no real point compiling on a P2 since 1) It's too close to x86 to really matter, and 2) You're going to spend well into fall if you compile everything

Back to the point, I never thought XFree86 was quite as efficient as, say, the older Win95 and NT4 desktop environments. I think you should try either the love or mm patched 2.4 kernels. Their I/O schedulers are much nicer than the vanilla (don't know about Con Koliva). Also you'll probably want to fall back to Ext3 (not ext2, since it's not journaled). You'll lose some harddrive performance, but you'll gain CPU back.

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So ext3 is less CPU-intensive than reiserfs? I've heard that ext3 access the disk every 5 seconds; which is quite bad for me...

I've been seriously thinking about going ext2. I know it's not journalised... but all the time i used Windows, it was vfat, and i never had a problem with it...

Victor.

[edited by - -vic- on March 31, 2004 6:59:32 PM]

You could go ext2...just realize the risks involved with not having journaling.

...like the risk of having to do a fsck if your machine doesn''t shutdown properly.

I use nothing but ext2 on all my machines...

I use reiser3, but my CPU can handle it.

Victor:
Get a source based distro or get Arch Linux.

Oh and you might be using vesa which makes the performance really bad.

-Victor

WTF! My friend has a 300 mhz pentium II with a klamath core that he uses Gentoo on. He said Gentoo is uber fast so don''t say that. Plus, Window 98 is DOS based and way out dated. Vic can use Arch Linux.