Mailing List Archive

> Hello.
>
> I recently installed Gentoo on my old Pentium 200 MMX machine with only
> 64MB RAM. Took only a couple of days, mostly because I was busy with
> other stuff. But now there's an update to glibc available which is
> simply impossible to emerge on this old computer.
>
> It's just, compiling is not the problem (thanks to distcc), it's the
> install process. When he's doing the stuff with UTF-8 and
> ISO8859-something -- What is that for anyway? -- it takes literally forever.
>
> Yesterday I updated glibc on my AthlonXP 1800+, which made me realize
> how little my P200 had completed of the stuff I mentioned above after a
> couple of days!
>
> I'd just like to know what that stuff is for. Oh, and, can I just modify
> my make.conf on my AthlonXP machine to compile glibc _for_ my P200 in
> order to emerge via binary package? Or have you guys got some other
> ideas to the problem?

I had the exact same problem. it seems to go something like this:

1. you have -j set at about 4 or more because you are using distcc
2. the part of the glibc compile that makes the locales (i think thats
what they are) does not use distcc but it does use -j. Therefore it
kicks off these things 4 or more at a time.
3. they use a large amount of memory leading to constant swapping, very
high load averages etc.

I let mine go (p233) and it took about a week.

only solution would be to set MAKEOPTS="-j1" and turning off distcc before
emerging glibc on a low memory machine.

>
> Regards,
> Sigi
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

--
Nick Rout
Barrister & Solicitor
Christchurch
Contact details at http://www.rout.co.nz
nick@rout.co.nz


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On October 11, 2004 12:27 am, Nick Rout wrote:
> > I recently installed Gentoo on my old Pentium 200 MMX machine with only
> > 64MB RAM. Took only a couple of days, mostly because I was busy with
> > other stuff. But now there's an update to glibc available which is
> > simply impossible to emerge on this old computer.
> >
> > It's just, compiling is not the problem (thanks to distcc), it's the
> > install process. When he's doing the stuff with UTF-8 and
> > ISO8859-something -- What is that for anyway? -- it takes literally
> > forever.
> >
> > Yesterday I updated glibc on my AthlonXP 1800+, which made me realize
> > how little my P200 had completed of the stuff I mentioned above after a
> > couple of days!
> >
> > I'd just like to know what that stuff is for. Oh, and, can I just modify
> > my make.conf on my AthlonXP machine to compile glibc _for_ my P200 in
> > order to emerge via binary package? Or have you guys got some other
> > ideas to the problem?
>
> I had the exact same problem. it seems to go something like this:
>
> 1. you have -j set at about 4 or more because you are using distcc
> 2. the part of the glibc compile that makes the locales (i think thats
> what they are) does not use distcc but it does use -j. Therefore it
> kicks off these things 4 or more at a time.
> 3. they use a large amount of memory leading to constant swapping, very
> high load averages etc.
>
> I let mine go (p233) and it took about a week.
>
> only solution would be to set MAKEOPTS="-j1" and turning off distcc before
> emerging glibc on a low memory machine.


i don't belive that setting the MAKEOPTS to a lower number will have any
effect since i have much the same setup on my network here, my firewall is a
little k6-II and it positively hates trying to install glibc. my solution
(and it seems to work just fine) is to use a custom make.conf on a separate
machine (athlonXP) and do the following:

(athlonXP) # emerge --buildpkgonly glibc
[copy package to k6]
(k6-II) # emerge --usepkg glibc

no problems have arisen on my end from going this route.


--
faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we can not continue,
that the whole of our whole lives is without meaning.
- brother alwyn macomber, babylon 5 "the deconstruction of falling stars"

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

> i don't belive that setting the MAKEOPTS to a lower number will have any
> effect

well all i can say is:

1. i observed make making 4 lots of locales at once.
2. each of them took huge memory and caused bulk swapping
3. i can't think of any other reason why it was building 4 of them at a
time

> since i have much the same setup on my network here, my firewall is a
> little k6-II and it positively hates trying to install glibc. my solution
> (and it seems to work just fine) is to use a custom make.conf on a separate
> machine (athlonXP) and do the following:
>
> (athlonXP) # emerge --buildpkgonly glibc
> [copy package to k6]
> (k6-II) # emerge --usepkg glibc
>
> no problems have arisen on my end from going this route.
>

certainly a good solution . check USE matches on both machines too i
would think.

>
> --
> faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we can not continue,
> that the whole of our whole lives is without meaning.
> - brother alwyn macomber, babylon 5 "the deconstruction of falling stars"
>
> --



--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On October 11, 2004 01:11 am, Nick Rout wrote:
> > i don't belive that setting the MAKEOPTS to a lower number will have any
> > effect
>
> well all i can say is:
>
> 1. i observed make making 4 lots of locales at once.
> 2. each of them took huge memory and caused bulk swapping
> 3. i can't think of any other reason why it was building 4 of them at a
> time

sorry, that came out wrong. what i meant to say was that it wouldn't have the
effect he needed. even running one locale at once he'll be swapping like mad
(my k6 swapped for nearly 2days for glibc). what he needs is to move the job
to another more capable box.

--
Zoe: Sir, I'd like you to take the helm, please. I need this man to tear all
my clothes off.
Wash: Work, work.
- Zoe and Wash, Firefly, "Serenity II"

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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

I dont have so much memory[about 128M RAM], But I set the SWAP big
enough for makeing GLIBC.

----------
MYHOST ~ # genlop -t glibc
* sys-libs/glibc

Mon Jul 12 03:05:58 2004 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.3.3.20040420
merge time: 21 minutes and 38 seconds.

Thu Aug 12 21:08:45 2004 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r1
merge time: 1 hour, 14 minutes and 24 seconds.

Sat Aug 21 00:31:19 2004 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.3.4.20040808
merge time: 1 hour, 59 minutes and 4 seconds.

Sat Oct 9 19:32:05 2004 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1
merge time: 1 hour, 53 minutes and 32 seconds.

MYHOST ~ # uname -a
Linux MYHOST 2.6.8-gentoo-r7 #3 SMP Fri Oct 8 22:07:30 HKT 2004 i686
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
MYHOST ~ #
MYHOST ~ # free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 123524 112684 10840 0 14472 62496
-/+ buffers/cache: 35716 87808
Swap: 1554604 49704 1504900

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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Nick Rout wrote:
>>(athlonXP) # emerge --buildpkgonly glibc
>>[copy package to k6]
>>(k6-II) # emerge --usepkg glibc
>>no problems have arisen on my end from going this route.
> certainly a good solution . check USE matches on both machines too i
> would think.
Thanks to all -- I'll give it a try.

Greetings,
Sigi


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Monday 11 October 2004 12:21 am, daniel wrote:

> sorry, that came out wrong. what i meant to say was that it wouldn't have
> the effect he needed. even running one locale at once he'll be swapping
> like mad (my k6 swapped for nearly 2days for glibc). what he needs is to
> move the job to another more capable box.

Or run openmosix, it will transfer that process over to your faster machine..

Jeff