whats the best?

hi there!
im installing a new pc just for cross-compiling! what distribution do you prefer? i only wanna work on bash.. that mashine is too slow for kde or something..
greez!
Draghi

Yeah, it's been a few weeks since we've had any discussions about religion on this BBS.

Debian, Suse or Mandrake. Not Redhat.

Um, no reason.

huh thanks! i think ill try debain this time!

<soapbox>
The initial install for debian is sometimes gets new users a bit discouraged, I haven't done one in a while, so maybe things have improved by now.

However, once you have it up and running, it is trivial to keep it up-to-date, which is why I haven't had to 're-install' anything from scratch over the past couple of years.
</soapbox>

When I was setting up my cross-compilation environment, I put all the steps I took in a script that hopefully can install the same toolkit automatically. Just follow the gpsapp link and it should be at the bottom of the page.

If you're comfortable with linux and CPU speed is really an issue, then maybe you should also consider Gentoo. Gentoo compiles everything from source, and optimises for your machine. I've heard it takes a while to install though...

Linux started to get too easy with the other distro's so I started using Gentoo and it brings back the fun and difficulty of Linux. So if you know a little bit about Linux and want to more about how it works, then try out Gentoo.

And make sure you have a fast CPU and a fast internt connection otherwise it's quite painful. Updating from kde 3.0.3 to kde 3.0.4 took like 6 hours last night on my Athlon 1900 XP.

later,
ajay

HeHe...my argument was that for a slow PC, gentoo should give you the best optimized binaries...compilation is a different matter though

On my Beige G3 (233 MHz, I think), it took approximately an entire weekend to install Gentoo. Pretty cool, though, except that they're still a little inclined to be x86-specific.

However, once you have it up and running, it is trivial to keep it up-to-date, which is why I haven't had to 're-install' anything from scratch over the past couple of years.

Same here, but on Redhat using up2date instead of apt-get (or whatever it's called, I've never used Debian).

P.S. Yes, I realise apt has some advantages over rpm in resolving package dependancies, but I have never had a problem in this area with rpm on RedHat anyway.

jaharkes your script does an 404
the link was:
http://ravel.coda.cs.cmu.edu/empeg/toolchain.sh

never heared something bout gentoo! its an 200Mhz machine.. i think it will do fine on compiling but no chance for kde..

greez
Draghi

Sorry about that, I just fixed it.

I find rpmfind quite helpful as well.

If I install anything that doesn't ship with RedHat I download the source and compile it, so I don't find I need anything like rpmfind.

Very true. Rpmfind comes in handy for when you're in a hurry, or just feeling lazy.

Where do you install it?

Having stuff in other than /usr/local which isn't in the rpm database makes my system less upgradable than I care to have happen, but I think I'm going to switch all my machines to some other distribution where the vendor doesn't ship deliberately broken kernels anyway.

In the case of major packages I put them where they want to go, so no they don't all go in /usr/local

As to the loss of upgradability, my only Linux box at the moment is my DNS and mail server. Because of this I don't spend my whole time installing new stuff. I haven't had any upgrade problems over the last couple of years that it has been running. I think that is because the sort of stuff I have been adding above the RedHat supplied packages has never required me to update any common libraries.

I doubt if much of the stuff I have added is available in apt format (or even in RPM) anyway.

I'll be building some new Linux boxes soon (want a backup DNS and mail server on the end of a friends DSL line), so I'll probably have a look at Debian and see what it's like then.

P.S. I know it isn't good to have your DNS/MX at the end of a DSL and I already have secondaries on a reliable Internet link.