Installing Gentoo on my shiny new 680i...

I downloaded the 2006.1 minimal cd and then downloaded the 2006.1 amd64 stage3. Right now I'm in the process of deciding my use flags, c flags, and configuring my kernel. I'm just wondering if anyone has made a performance build on this computer yet, and what kernel options and flags they are using. The complete build is as follows:

eVGA 680i SLI
Core 2 Duo e6600
2x1 GB OCZ Gold 5400 (4-4-4-12)
2x500 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM in RAID-0
Geforce 8800 GTS 640 Meg

Really, what I would like is a solid methodology for first finding precisely what hardware my computer is running, precisely what needs to be compiled into the kernel, what can be compiled as a module and what a good base configuration for CFLAGS/USE are. Example configurations from those of you out there who have this motherboard/processor/video card would be very helpful as well.

Some Hacker said:

I downloaded the 2006.1 minimal cd and then downloaded the 2006.1 amd64 stage3. Right now I'm in the process of deciding my use flags, c flags, and configuring my kernel. I'm just wondering if anyone has made a performance build on this computer yet, and what kernel options and flags they are using. The complete build is as follows:

eVGA 680i SLI
Core 2 Duo e6600
2x1 GB OCZ Gold 5400 (4-4-4-12)
2x500 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM in RAID-0
Geforce 8800 GTS 640 Meg

Really, what I would like is a solid methodology for first finding precisely what hardware my computer is running, precisely what needs to be compiled into the kernel, what can be compiled as a module and what a good base configuration for CFLAGS/USE are. Example configurations from those of you out there who have this motherboard/processor/video card would be very helpful as well.

Click to expand...

Until someone responds with some personal experience with a setup like yours, a good source for info would be Gentoo Forums.

Some safe cflags that are recommended for core or core 2 processor and a 64 bit environment are:

The core and core 2 processors won't have their own "march=" until GCC 4.3

Wow really? I am suprised it isn't in there already.

Subscribed, jut wanna see what kind of fun you'll have with the 680i.

Some Hacker said:

Really, what I would like is a solid methodology for first finding precisely what hardware my computer is running, precisely what needs to be compiled into the kernel, what can be compiled as a module and what a good base configuration for CFLAGS/USE are. Example configurations from those of you out there who have this motherboard/processor/video card would be very helpful as well.

Click to expand...

I'll venture to guess that your on the cutting edge here.

Tools to find out what you have:
lspci
lsusb
Read the manual for the motherboard and note references to chipsets.
Search the Gentoo forums. If you don't find anything, then noone is having any problems, or your the first

See what that tells you.

Different board, but I'm using:
CFLAGS="-march=nocona -O2 -pipe"

Or use what gruven suggested.
Stay conservative. Aggressive optimizations are overrated and will cause problems. Get a stable system first, then tweak it if you want, preferably on a per-package basis.

USE flags really depends on what you use your computer for. It won't hurt to ignore it until you find a reason to set/unset something.

Kernel requirements also depends on what you use your computer for. A server has different requirements than a desktop or a gaming rig. You can compile most things as modules. Filesystem, hard drives, keyboard and mouse, possibly USB, need to be compiled into the kernel.

I had been using slackware for awhile but I have used gentoo quite a bit in the past. I just got the 650i sli board and after messing with a few distros I came to the conclusion that gentoo will best serve me in this instance.

One silly thing to note is that I have the amd64 flag set for a core2duo system and it seems to work fine. At the time of the build I figured i'd just leave it and see what happens instead of looking it up. Everything seems to work, should I change the make.conf and recompile my apps?

I was not aware that you could tweak your CFLAGS from package to package....I thought once they were set, (on install) they were set for good.

I thought you could change it in your make.conf and it would influence only what you compile from that point forward, meaning you'd have to recompile everything you wanted to be effected.

But hey, I could be wrong.

i am pretty sure you can change anything in you make.conf, and then it will influence anything that is compiled from then on. Reason being, when you do a stage 3 install, several components are already compiled, most likely using different cflags and use. So, when you "emerge -uDN world" you will rebuild packages with the new use flags and new cflags.

That was exactly my thinking.

/etc/make.conf sets global values. Changing it will affect the next emerge.

Problem is that if you have specific settings for specific packages, you'd have to remember to change it when emerging those packages.

Several files in /etc/portage are documented <here>for setting specific use flags, keywords, masking and unmasking packages.

For cflags nothing appears to be officially documented (that I can find).
One method is discussed <here> (about halfway down) and <here>.
I've also seen a variety of scripts that people use.

The only modifications I've ever tried for cflags were globally in make.conf. So I can't confirm how well the above proceedure works.