Re: Re: Oldworld PPC install (gentoo newbie)

Thanks for the tips.  

I made some changes in the distcc config and it appears to be working.  (My internet connection died partway through the bootstrap build.  So I took the opportunity to modify the distcc config.  I am convinced that distcc is functioning as desired.  Restarting the bootstrap build skipped most of the previously completed steps and continued to completion -- I am now partway through the emerge system.)

Yes I did base install all three machines up to but not including the bootstrap command.  One of the machines is a loaner (actually I am setting it up as a firewall for a friend) that will be migrating out of this environment.  However on the other machines your suggestion for NFS sounds good.  I have some NFS background too from SuSE so I will be trying that locally.  I also may setup a similar x86 environment in the future on the same box.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Guilty -- I used Wordpad on Windows to save my notes -- will save it as RTF before sending again.

As to the manual used, I have been following new combined manual.  Should probably look around more for a PPC specific manual including possibly the hardened manual for more PPC specific help -- thatks for that suggestion too.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Hudkins [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2005 03:43 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [gentoo-ppc-user] Re: Oldworld PPC install (gentoo newbie)
> 
> [email protected] wrote:
> 
> > There are several possible changes to the documentation and kernel noted
> > in the attached document.
> 
>  Minus 10 points for attaching a MS Word document, but it seems to open OK
> in OpenOffice.  ;)  I'm assuming you were making notes from your Windows
> box as the install proceeded.  I do not have access to Word here, so I'm
> going to paste any comments I may have back into this reply, for the
> benefit of others.
>  
> > There are some questions from the Word file Dave attached.]
> 
> >  Was the use if {ipaddr3}/2 on concerning use of distcc in the compilation
> > process using three PPC's without Gentoo installed. If anyone has some
> > input it would be appreciated.
> 
> [The following quotes are excerpts the Performa 4400/200 instead of 
> >  localhost/2 a mistake?
> 
>  No, as I understand it, because you cannot do a netmask on a name.
> 
> >  I am seeing considerably less messages all on the Performa 
> > 4400/200 {ipaddr3} machine and cannot observe the use of the other 
> > boxes at this time (little network activity and no noticable head 
> > movement on the drives (by finger touch) ) however the process is 
> > reasonably quick.
> 
>  I believe there's a text-mode tool called distccmon (try tab-completion on
> "distcc") that will show you what distcc is doing at the moment.  I'm not
> sure which machine it needs to be run on, though; check your documentation
> for distcc.
> 
> >  make && make modules_install
> >  cp arch/(i386/ppc?)/boot/bzImage /boot; cp System.map /boot
> 
> > Are any files to be copied to the Linux Kernels folder in the Mac 
> > System Folder?
> 
>  Yes!  You'll need to copy over the kernel image (named to something
> appropriate) and if using an initial RAMdisk you'll need to copy the
> "initrd" as well.  As I recall, I just copied anything that went into /boot
> into the Kernels folder as well.  If it never got used, oh well -- better
> than *not* having something you need!  I cannot remember which ones I
> needed before; maybe someone with more current experience can help here.
> 
>  Since I see "i386" up there, here's a dumb question:  Are you following the
> PPC version of the handbook?  :)  The distcc installation guide may be a
> bit x86-specific.  It also looks like it may be a bit 2.4-specific; note
> that with 2.6, "vmlinux" lands in the working directory but all compressed
> images go into /usr/src/linux/arch/ppc/boot/images/ .  If you use "make all
> && make modules_install", you should also have zImage and bzImage available
> in there if it turns out you need them.
> 
> [End excerpts from Word file.]
> 
> > There is also a cloning process for the output of the machine to the
> > others to prevent repeating the process three times.  Any indications of
> > potential success or suggestions as to the proper cloning process would be
> > appreciated.
> 
>  I did read through that, and it looks like it should work.  I'm not sure
> what is gained by this, though, since you've done the base install on them
> already.  (Did I mis-read that?)
> 
>  Since the machines are all the same architecture and all being freshly
> installed with Gentoo, they should all have the same compiler version, so
> sharing tarballs between them would make sense.  From what I've read, the
> usual method for this sort of thing is to make one of the machines an NFS
> server (probably the one with the most HD space to spare), and
> share /usr/portage/packages from it.  Mount that share from your other
> boxes and point $PKGDIR to it, then build packages on all machines using
> "emerge -bk" (--buildpkg and --usepkg).  This way, when any machine builds
> a package, the binary tarball will be saved in the share, and the next one
> that needs it will not have to bother compiling it.
> 
>  To further save space, you can share /usr/portage/distfiles in a similar
> way.  Any box that downloads sources will place them in the shared
> directory for use by all.  (I have done the NFS install only once, to get
> Gentoo onto an ancient laptop with about 4 GB *total* hard drive space.)
> 
>  Now, I'd say the most effective use of your resources would be to have the
> machine with the fastest/most processor(s) do the complete install and use
> the other boxes purely as extra processors for distcc.  When it finishes,
> then have the other boxes complete their installs using the binaries it has
> built.
> 
>  (Recent experience with spending about two weeks doing "emerge -bkev world"
> has shown me that you can install a heavily-loaded -- 560 packages --
> system in a matter of a few hours from binaries.  So, since many packages
> will be shared between these machines, this method could save you a lot of
> time.)
> 
>  An alternative to NFS would be to build all the binaries as above, but burn
> them to CD when finished, then carry the CD to the other machines and let
> them install from that.  (Some people have trouble with NFS for various
> reasons; I know it took me several tries and I almost gave up!)
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> -- 
> // Carl Hudkins :: PGP 50238D9E
> //
> //               ==]  What would Jeeves do?  [==
> //
> 
> 
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