Re: [gentoo-user] tried desktop profile

[Jude DaShiell]

On Tue, 13 Oct 2020, Michael wrote:

> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 08:04:30
> From: Michael <confabulate@××××××××.com>
> Reply-To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
> To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] tried desktop profile
>
> On Tuesday, 13 October 2020 09:30:00 BST Jude DaShiell wrote:
>
> > I'm trying -j1 first.  This machine has 50% of its maximum ram capacity
> > in use and only has 2gb of ram capacity so yes this is a low memory
> > machine.  Why I'm using it at all is since it has available a 3tb hard
> > drive.  As long as /tmp directories under the $HOME directory structure
> > have better system protection than /tmpfs and /var/tmp if the -j1 build
> > fails I'll try pointing the memory to a safer place.  I need to buy some
> > decent sized ssd drives since that way I can do this on my new machine
> > with 14GB of ram.
>
> OK, your RAM is not enough to build most large packages today.  I'm thinking
> rust, chromium, gcc, firefox, libreoffice, as examples.  Most of these will
> refuse to emerge right at the start as they check for adequate /var/tmp space.
> In any case, the solution for low RAM PCs is to set up adequate space on your
> disk for those packages only.  Also to increase your swap, or add a swapfile
> just for these larger packages.
>
> Have a read at 'Example 2' here:
>
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/package.env
>
> If your / fs partition has inadequate free space, you can set up /var/tmp/
> notmpfs to a different partition as long as you remember to mount it with
> 'mount -o exec' and activate any swapfile(s) in advance.
>
> If you only set up more swap and leave PORTAGE_TMPDIR on RAM, the swapping
> from your RAM to disk will inevitably incur I/O bottleneck conditions and will
> start thrashing the disk, which could slow everything down to a crawl,
> potentially for days.  Therefore, it is worth switching to BFQ scheduler when
> heavy swappage is expected:
>
> # echo bfq > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler
>
> where sda is the disk on which the swapfile or partition is set.

-- 

Since the profile without the desktop emerged @world correctly after the
make.conf file got adjusted correctly for this computer I think all it
will run will be the basic profile.  Even if it were possible to emerge
the compiles necessary for a desktop and get the rest of the system built
I'd probably run into difficulties later.  I'll do the basic profile on
this machine and maybe do a desktop on the newer machine at some later
date.