[linux-audio-user] Re: Fresh PC waiting for basic installation - Advice?

[luis jure]

el Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:06:59 -0400
Alastair Couper <kalepa at shaka.com> escribió:

> What difference does the target processor for the various distros make ?
> Is there enough difference between the i386 i586 i686 based distros to
> be worth anything ? I had assumed that compiling your own kernel for
> your specific processor was a Good Thing (tm). I figured that building
> these other apps for your processor would be a slight advantage too. An
> i386 based distro for multimedia doesn't make sense if the apps aren't
> making use of the various enhancements available in P4 or K7 based
> systems, unless those enhancements don't count for much in real life.


very sensible reasoning, imo. if you're really concerned about optimizing
compilation for you specific processor, and assuming you're not intending to
go all the way down to LinuxFromScratch [1], i think you should definitely
take a look at gentoo[2]. instead of distributing pre-compiled binaries,
gentoo is based in a collection of "ebuilds". an ebuild is simply a bash
script that automagically downloads the sources, compiles, installs and
configures the packages for you, taking care of dependencies along the way.
you can thus have an optimized system built from scratch, without having to
manually install every single package. as far as i have seen, they have
ebuilds for most or all audio packages, and reasonably up-to-date too,
making gentoo an option worth mentioning along with planet ccrma and the
like. it'll take you longer, though. be ready to spend the whole afternoon
just reading the docs and trying to figure out how things work. having the
system up and running might take a couple of days, depending on your
internet connection and processor speed, but you might end up with a more
robust and optimized system (and perhaps less bloated) than otherwise.

DISCLAIMER: i installed gentoo a couple of times but i don't use it myself,
and i don't endorse it in any way. i can't obviously guarantee that the
system is indeed as stable and efficient as it should be, i just wanted to
call your attention to a valid option that hasn't been mentioned yet. good
luck and have fun.


[1] http://www.linuxfromscratch.org
[2] http://www.gentoo.org


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