Linux build?

[Lucas_Maximus]

tis true you can do a gentoo build from stage 3 relatively quick.

[BPW]

Go Debian!

Use the new Sarge-Installer to do a minimal install and grab the rest off the internet.

Very clean and slick distro, very, very stable, and a huge amount of packages which are managed by an excellent package manager.

You'll like it.

BPW

[proFeign]

Originally Posted by Lucas_Maximus

tis true you can do a gentoo build from stage 3 relatively quick.

I'm going to have to see what runs. Is gentoo going to be slow, given the age of the machine?

I think I've narrowed it down to:

1. Gentoo
2. Fedora 2
3. Mandrake

-proF

[wallijonn]

No Linux is "really slow"; it will perform faster than a comparable MS OS. If anything, Gentoo should be quite fast as it is more likely to optimise the kernel for the processor. As a learning tool Linux will either sell you on the idea to port it over to a faster processor, to keep it on the 'slower' machine or to abandon it altogether.

For pure ease of C++ compiling a Mac is probably a lot better.

If you do a lot of C++ compiling you should immediately find out if it is acceptable.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Linux is booting slower because you are seeing a lot of text go past your screen; use a stopwatch if you have to.

The speed of Linux is within the running application, not in how fast a system boots up or how long it takes to start an appl., like GIMP or OpenOffice. Linux does a mini-compile every time an app. starts, loading whole modules and not just the interface.

[Lucas_Maximus]

I not sure if the percifics but there a lots of things that you can do to speed linux up,

especially as gentoo makes it easy,

Also prelinking is a good one, you can seriousl speed up the KDE and other apps in linux, there is a huge howto base in gentoo forums that discuss hwo to do a lot fo cool stuff.

Also stay away from BSD's coz they are unix not linux's and work similar in some respects vert different in others.

[Lucas_Maximus]

If the new debian sarge installer is a bit easier it may nt be much harder than installing slack.

[proFeign]

Originally Posted by wallijonn

No Linux is "really slow"; it will perform faster than a comparable MS OS. If anything, Gentoo should be quite fast as it is more likely to optimise the kernel for the processor. As a learning tool Linux will either sell you on the idea to port it over to a faster processor, to keep it on the 'slower' machine or to abandon it altogether.

For pure ease of C++ compiling a Mac is probably a lot better.

If you do a lot of C++ compiling you should immediately find out if it is acceptable.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Linux is booting slower because you are seeing a lot of text go past your screen; use a stopwatch if you have to.

The speed of Linux is within the running application, not in how fast a system boots up or how long it takes to start an appl., like GIMP or OpenOffice. Linux does a mini-compile every time an app. starts, loading whole modules and not just the interface.

I'm pretty familiar with various machines' behavior. I think I'll be happy for quite a while if I'm able to get it booting at all.

I do plain vanilla C compiling now, but I will look into more compilers and debuggers in the future. And I'm not going to get a Mac unless they come out with a sweet tablet PC with the same kind of superb mechanics and design of the powerbooks. Also it would have to run windows.

proF