[curtis1552]

for those who haven't heard of it, distcc is a distributed compiler.
It intrigued me, as I'm starting to set up some older computers with gentoo and speeding up compile time would be a huge benefit.
I haven't read all the documentation yet, but it has debian, RPM, and source for download.
Is anyone using this to speed up their compiling? if so, hows it working?

[TalRW]

I don't use it as I only have one machine. MRD I know has it setup. I wouldn't setup a seperate box just for distcc though. Especially if it's older.

I mean if you have two gentoo boxes already setup and you use both it makes sense to set up distcc to help compiling times. It however really doesn't make sense to just set up an old machine for the sole source of compiling. For example lets say you have your AMD X2 4200 running at about 3ghz. If you were to attach lets say a P3 933. If you go by pure clock speed it is about 1/3rd as fast for just one core (before you jump on me I know it's actually even less because it doesn't have things like SSE2 and pure clockspeed is not a accurate measure of speed).

So lets say your X2 compiles at 200% (100% for each core). Adding on a old P3 933 would only increase that to 233%. Adding the extra box would yield a very small increase in speed. Secondly the time spent setting up a second gentoo box and the electricity wasted (I mean what is it going to be doing when you aren't compiling. Worst case scenario it just sits there 24/7 sucking power, best case it is running a distributed computing project but on such an old PC it would be so inefficient it would still be a waste of watts/flops compared to a modern PC) and other stuff it seems like way more trouble then it's worth to just compile a tiny bit faster.

Now if you want to experiment then I say go for it.

Also please don't jump on me for my math. I know it is way off and highly estimated. It was more just for the sake of illustrating a point then actually using actual numbers.

[curtis1552]

Nonono,
I want it so the new(er) computers can help compile programs for the older somputers.

I'm not worried bout the math.

The website (for distcc) had an example but you don't get 200% (of total processing power) it ends up like 189%.
I'm setting up a 750mhz and a 1000mhz with Fluxbox and Gentoo. If I can set up my ubuntu box to help compile the programs it would save me a LOT of time.

[TalRW]

awww! I totally had it backwards. I was like why would you setup a really old PC to help compile for a new computer which should be able to handle itself.

Are your X2's 64 bit and are you running 64 bit gentoo. I think if that is the case you will run into some issues (or have to do a little bit extra work with distcc) It might be easier to use the --buildpkg option and compile totally one one of your quicker machines and transfer it over.