[plug] Distro Day !!!

[William Kenworthy]

Ok, I'll be in it - its an interesting scenario.  I do have a
restriction in that I work so that may cause a problem for what hours I
can be available, but we'll see how it goes.  I know Garry (saw the
email where he put his name forward for gentoo) and met his mate Joris
last night so between us there should not be too many issues we cannot
solve between us.

Compile time is the biggest issue for Gentoo, and taking too many
shortcuts will not show Gentoo's performance off to its best, which
would be a criticism if you are doing performance tests.  gnome/kde and 
OO are the biggest problems here - OO can take 8 hours on a p4-2.2Mhz. 
So to get ahead on this I can pre-build the binary packages - can you
let me know the machine hardware and software specs?  Gentoo has a
binary install mode where you can compile packages on another machine
with the wanted options, and then if the new install finds a pre-built
package for one it wants to compile, it will an unpack and install that
instead.

Things that need pining down on the software side are what packages, and
what configuration.  For an apples to apples comparison, things like
filesystem types, partitioning, services running during tests need
laying down. You dont want something like ext 3 trying to compete with a
reiserfs -notail on OO startup and so on.  Other items to consider are
gentoo's ccache and distcc options which would come under "unfair
advantage" - we would need to see whats appropriate and configure
accordingly!


On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 21:16, indy at THE-TECH.MIT.EDU wrote:
> Hey Bill,
> 
> 
> I need to get back to you with comments on your Gentoo article,
> but since you are most certainly the local Gentto expert I'd like
> to hit you up to organise the installation of the Gentoo test machine
> for our LinMagAu feature. As Scott noted, we're not
> sure when we'll get the first test machines, but it'd be really great if
> we started on Gentoo first for obvious reasons.
> 
> 
> many thanks,
> 
> 
> Indy.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 07:47:49AM +0800, William Kenworthy wrote:
> > For gentoo, if you can get the box specs ahead of time, you could
> > pre-compile the packages in a chroot, or local session on another gentoo
> > machine - the stage 3 install then becomes similar to RedHat etc, with
> > just a local kernel compile needed on the day.  If the software specs
> > include X, you are going to be lucky to get a machine in time otherwise
> > ...
> > 
> > The native gentoo binary install is generic i386 and is intended to be
> > gone back over and recompiled.  But you can pre-compile the packages on
> > another machine and replace the generic packages.  Binary installs are
> > so you can get a machine up and running fast, but you lose most of the
> > gentoo advantages.  The pre-compiled package method is used for secure
> > servers where you dont have compilers etc on the destination machine.
> > 
> > Another time saver is having all the tarballs local first: I have them
> > and can burn a few CD's, or transfer from my laptop if needed - my modem
> > is not up to transferring that many files in less than a month or so!
> > 
> > And lastly, a gentoo buildfarm  using ccache and distcc and a few
> > helpful souls (i.e., machines with ccache and distcc) is also a
> > possibility, but you do need a basic system first, the gains up until
> > that point are doubtful on a modern system.
> > 
> > BillK
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 06:46, Garry wrote:
> > > I'm happy to do the Debian and Mandrake boxen. I'll use Knoppix to make the Debian really painless.. The Gentoo is a new one on me, but if Matt and Scott are happy to have the box compiling in the corner I _should_ be able to work out how to get it going.. Give my geeky Belgian friend Joris some fun too I suspect..
> > > 
> > > Could we have an idea when the machines will be available? Will they require assembly, or will they come ready-to-fly?
> > > 
> > > Getting to the Hilton LinuxIT shop is easy enough, but being bus dependent I can't pick up these boxes..
> > > 
> > > Regards Garry
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > We are looking for..
> > > > 
> > > > 1)      A couple of folks to put up their hands to do the pre installation
> > > > so that the day of testing, can actually be testing :)
> > > > Scott says:
> > > > People involved in setting it up will have FULL access to LinuxIT before
> > > > the day and all the help we can provide except where we have to help our
> > > > clients.:
> > -- 
> > William Kenworthy <billk at iinet.net.au>
-- 
William Kenworthy <billk at iinet.net.au>