Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo on a kvm - can't install kernel sources

[Alan McKinnon]

On 25/08/2013 23:33, Michael Mair-Keimberger wrote:
>
>
> On Monday 26 August 2013 01:49:17 Yohan Pereira wrote:
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>> On 25/08/13 at 09:50pm, Alan McKinnon wrote:
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>> > I'd recommend cross-building just a kernel and modules locally and
>
>> > copying that to the vm, it will only be about 6 to 8M
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>> >
>
>> >
>
>> > Some food for thought:
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>> >
>
>> > I do question the wisdom though of running Gentoo on a VM like that.
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>> > I've always found that Gentoo (despite all it's fantastic awesomeness
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>> > elsewhere) is really not fitted for that specific task very well - it
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>> > tends to be a lot of pain and not much gain.
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>> >
>
>> > Why do you want Gentoo on the vm? Is there a very good reason, or is it
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>> > because you are familiar with it?
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>> >
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>> > If the second reason, you might want to have a look at FreeBSD or one of
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>> > the binary distros based of Gentoo like Sabayon. You might find the best
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>> > of both worlds in that space.
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>>
>
>> Well I have a couple VM's running on 256 mb of RAM. While I'll admit I
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>> initially chose gentoo because of familiarity. It seemed to work out fine
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>> although I'll admit I've I haven't updated the kernel, just using the
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>> kernel provided by the host. AFAIR the heaviest(memory wise) thing I did
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>> on such a VM was running a java stock trading application in a virtual
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>> screen that was accessed via VNC.
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>>
>
>> I've never had problems(yet) compiling gcc etc. I remeber being able to
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>> compile faster than my laptop's aging core 2 due processor.
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>>
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>> Currently I use one for my personal a mail server, quassel (irc client),
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>> tt-rss, git/mecurial collaboration, development web hosting and other
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>> random stuff. It hasn't borked on me yet but YMMV. Heres the output of
> free
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>> from the VM.
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>>
>
>> $ free -m
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>> total used free shared buffers
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>> cached
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>> Mem: 246 231 15 0
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>> 14 157
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>> -/+ buffers/cache: 59 187
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>> Swap: 494 57 437
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>
>
> Well, familiarity was my main reason but actually i though gentoo fits
> anyway quite good on such weak systems? (well besides compiling on it)
> You get a small system which needs not much space and performs quite
> good. (thats why 5GB is actually enough for me - i don't store anything
> there).
>
> FreeBSD might be a good alternative and in case gentoo is to much pain
> i'll give it a try. :)
>
>
>
> BTW, i have an alix device at home which also has just 256MB Ram and
> while the CF-Card (where the gentoo system is stored) has 8GB now, i've
> started with an 4GB CF-Card and i did compile on this device - even
> (hardened)kernels :)
>
> That was ~3 years ago, now i cross-compile for this device. However,
> gentoo on such devices runs perfectly well and rock stable. :)


If it works for you then it works :-)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com