going for Gentoo - what kernel to use: 2.4 or 2.6?

I am going to replace my current Linux OS (Xandros 2.0) with Gentoo. I read the installation manual and I am ready to start. I will go ahead and do the full Stage 1 and compile everything from scratch - since I have an Athlon Dually, that should help some!.

My main apps are: KDE, OpenOffice, Samba (for data sharing on my Gig-E LAN with Windoze bozes), Pan (news reader), Moxilla (for both Email/Contacts and for Surfing), and lastly, I want to eventually install VMware for Linux to have a couple of Win2K/WinXP virtual boxes when I need them.

I have two basic questions:
1) Should I go ahead and use the newest 2.6 kernel, or stick with the "tried-n-true" 2.4 kernel? Pros/cons of each one? Is 2.6 really faster and is it stable enough for daily use?

2) Since I am going to be compiling everything, I would like some recommendations on the flags to use for my system (see SIG). Can folks please reply with (or email me at [email protected]) with the Gentoo configuration that you are using?

Thanks in advance

William

Just install the 2.6 kernel from the get go. It's pretty well considered stable now and it'll be a healthy speed improvement over the 2.4 kernel as well.

Id deffinatly go with the 2.6 kernel. When you go do emerge it, its called gentoo-dev-kernel if my memory serves me.

To give you an idea, this is my AMD boxes /etc/make.conf

CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=athlon-xp -march=athlon-xp -pipe -ffast-math -fstack-protector -fomit-frame-pointer "
CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
USE="nogcj -java -nls -gnome -gtk kde qt alsa 3dnow mmx sse"

Check to see if there are any SMP specific CFLAGS and add those if needed. Mine are not super tweaked, but not very plain either. A good balance of speed and realiblity. I have only had one issue with a USE flag, and that was with builidng XMMS and no java support.

{PMS}fishy, I may be wrong but you may want to change your CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu" to CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" There should be some speed improvement there so long as you processor is 686 class or better.

kaltag said:

{PMS}fishy, I may be wrong but you may want to change your CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu" to CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" There should be some speed improvement there so long as you processor is 686 class or better.

Click to expand...

HA, oops. I could have sworn I changed that when it was installed. I wonder if it will make any difference now. Can't hurt to try.

Thanks much - I will be installing the 2.6 kernel with those settings this weekend