[arch-general] Arch box fine tuning
Hi everybody, after a few months of running ArchLinux, I feel more comfortable to fine tune my box, and will be happy to get some advices. I am far from being an expert, but usually manage to understand what I am doing and achieve my goals, even if it takes time and a lot of reading and googling. I can qualified myself as a n00b++. My Arch is installed on a SSD with a /boot, / and /usr partitions on it. /home is on another 2T SATA HD. My box dual boot with Ubuntu, even if I don't use it much often now (I wanted to start with Ubuntu to learn, then switch gradually to Arch). The host is a 4 CPU I7 3.4 Mhz with 32 RAM. Here are the changes I plan to make: -convert from MBR to GPT. I understand GPT is more convenient, and the move seems quite trivial using gdisk. -install GRUB2 on the SSD, as until now it was on Ubuntu, and I want to be able to totally delete this distro. -copy my separate /usr partition to my / on the SSD, as a separate /usr is not very convenient. I manage it, but would like to stick to upstream. -install compiz over my XFCE, to be able to give position to my app windows. I want somethimg simple, so maybe don't need the whole group. -build my own Kernel to light it, and maybe give a try to Liquorix -OC my GPU (Nvidia 560 GTX) with nvclock. -create some VM, but I think I am quite OK as I already trained on Ubuntu and the result was fine. I want to install Debian squeeze to run as a web server. Here again, just a training as my final plan is to build a professional website using a remote dedicated Linux server. As experienced users, maybe some of you have some good advices about all this. I usually do everything following Archwiki, very well writen and understandable. TY in advance for sharing experience and hints.
On 06/14/2012 11:01 AM, Arno Gaboury wrote:
Hi everybody,
after a few months of running ArchLinux, I feel more comfortable to fine tune my box, and will be happy to get some advices.
I am far from being an expert, but usually manage to understand what I am doing and achieve my goals, even if it takes time and a lot of reading and googling. I can qualified myself as a n00b++.
My Arch is installed on a SSD with a /boot, / and /usr partitions on it. /home is on another 2T SATA HD. My box dual boot with Ubuntu, even if I don't use it much often now (I wanted to start with Ubuntu to learn, then switch gradually to Arch). The host is a 4 CPU I7 3.4 Mhz with 32 RAM.
Here are the changes I plan to make:
-convert from MBR to GPT. I understand GPT is more convenient, and the move seems quite trivial using gdisk. -install GRUB2 on the SSD, as until now it was on Ubuntu, and I want to be able to totally delete this distro. -copy my separate /usr partition to my / on the SSD, as a separate /usr is not very convenient. I manage it, but would like to stick to upstream. -install compiz over my XFCE, to be able to give position to my app windows. I want somethimg simple, so maybe don't need the whole group. -build my own Kernel to light it, and maybe give a try to Liquorix -OC my GPU (Nvidia 560 GTX) with nvclock. -create some VM, but I think I am quite OK as I already trained on Ubuntu and the result was fine. I want to install Debian squeeze to run as a web server. Here again, just a training as my final plan is to build a professional website using a remote dedicated Linux server.
As experienced users, maybe some of you have some good advices about all this. I usually do everything following Archwiki, very well writen and understandable.
TY in advance for sharing experience and hints.
I installed nvclock, and doesn't work with my card. It seems rater outdated. Uninstalled it. AS for building the Kernel, I will start using my current config file (proc/config.gz if I am right) and gradually with menu config removed unused parts. Does anyone have a good and comprehensive pointer for all menus in menuconfig, as I do not a lot about hardware? TY,
My best advice is get on IRC and proceed point by point, they are very helpful; Myself I can help with the server stuff, xfce/compiz setup and a few others. On Jun 14, 2012, at 5:01 AM, Arno Gaboury <arnaud.gaboury@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everybody,
after a few months of running ArchLinux, I feel more comfortable to fine tune my box, and will be happy to get some advices.
I am far from being an expert, but usually manage to understand what I am doing and achieve my goals, even if it takes time and a lot of reading and googling. I can qualified myself as a n00b++.
My Arch is installed on a SSD with a /boot, / and /usr partitions on it. /home is on another 2T SATA HD. My box dual boot with Ubuntu, even if I don't use it much often now (I wanted to start with Ubuntu to learn, then switch gradually to Arch). The host is a 4 CPU I7 3.4 Mhz with 32 RAM.
Here are the changes I plan to make:
-convert from MBR to GPT. I understand GPT is more convenient, and the move seems quite trivial using gdisk. -install GRUB2 on the SSD, as until now it was on Ubuntu, and I want to be able to totally delete this distro. -copy my separate /usr partition to my / on the SSD, as a separate /usr is not very convenient. I manage it, but would like to stick to upstream. -install compiz over my XFCE, to be able to give position to my app windows. I want somethimg simple, so maybe don't need the whole group. -build my own Kernel to light it, and maybe give a try to Liquorix -OC my GPU (Nvidia 560 GTX) with nvclock. -create some VM, but I think I am quite OK as I already trained on Ubuntu and the result was fine. I want to install Debian squeeze to run as a web server. Here again, just a training as my final plan is to build a professional website using a remote dedicated Linux server.
As experienced users, maybe some of you have some good advices about all this. I usually do everything following Archwiki, very well writen and understandable.
TY in advance for sharing experience and hints.
convert from MBR to GPT. I understand GPT is more convenient,
As an exercise for the future for some OSs to use > 2TB fair enough but if your doing it for convenience, please explain because MBR has become a proper well tested cross platform standard and GPT won't according to a recent thread on the OpenBSD list. ________________________________________________________ Why not do something good every day and install BOINC. ________________________________________________________
On 06/14/2012 03:52 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
convert from MBR to GPT. I understand GPT is more convenient, As an exercise for the future for some OSs to use > 2TB fair enough but if your doing it for convenience, please explain because MBR has become a proper well tested cross platform standard and GPT won't according to a recent thread on the OpenBSD list.
________________________________________________________
Why not do something good every day and install BOINC. ________________________________________________________ Interesting point of view. As for the exercie for future with HD> 2TB, I do think I have enough work with so many things to learn for the next 2 years!!
TY, I then do think I will stick with MBR. Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Arno Gaboury <arnaud.gaboury@gmail.com>wrote:
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
I think that you will not find this one. The best explanation of most of these submenus (that I know of) is the help text that accompanies them. Other than the kernel source of course! That said, there are quite a few options that are well documented elsewhere... just google for them if they seem interesting enough. I would start by setting in-kernel all the modules your kernel loads at start up. The objective would be that in a fully booted system, the command "lsmod" returns nothing. That will keep you busy for quite some time ;-P After that you can start removing all the modules for weird hardware you don't have or will foreseeable have, in order to reduce the compilation time. And then... without even noticing, you will have learned a lot about even the most arcane kernel options... -- Rodrigo
On 06/14/2012 04:18 PM, Rodrigo Rivas wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Arno Gaboury <arnaud.gaboury@gmail.com>wrote:
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
I think that you will not find this one. The best explanation of most of these submenus (that I know of) is the help text that accompanies them. Other than the kernel source of course!
That said, there are quite a few options that are well documented elsewhere... just google for them if they seem interesting enough.
I would start by setting in-kernel all the modules your kernel loads at start up. The objective would be that in a fully booted system, the command "lsmod" returns nothing. That will keep you busy for quite some time ;-P After that you can start removing all the modules for weird hardware you don't have or will foreseeable have, in order to reduce the compilation time.
And then... without even noticing, you will have learned a lot about even the most arcane kernel options...
Sounds good. I will then stick to your approach, as it makes sense. TY for sharing.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Arno Gaboury <arnaud.gaboury@gmail.com> wrote:
On 06/14/2012 04:18 PM, Rodrigo Rivas wrote:
And then... without even noticing, you will have learned a lot about even the most arcane kernel options...
Sounds good. I will then stick to your approach, as it makes sense.
personally i would use the kernels `localmodconfig`, ie. `make localmodconfig`. this make target will build a kernel matching the current state of your system. so, you must: 1) boot normally 2) `modprobe -r` any modules you *for sure* don't need 2) `modprobe`/launch absolutely every module/application you might want or need (everything! loopback, bluetooth, etc) 3) `make localmodconfig` ... this will build you a kernel with only the bare minimum needed to fulfill your current state; any modules not loaded at this time will not be built. you may still need to configure other features unrelated to modules. -- C Anthony
Anyway, is a kernel configuration and (re)compilation really worth the pain and time ?? Is a custom kernel giving any benefit or speed-up apart from something marginal and more about the feeling than anything else ? I gave up trying to make one just by lazyness on archlinux. I did that many years when I used slackware. But that's a thing to do at least once in a lifetime of course :-)
On Thu, 2012-06-14 at 18:35 +0200, solsTiCe d'Hiver wrote:
Anyway, is a kernel configuration and (re)compilation really worth the pain and time ??
Is a custom kernel giving any benefit or speed-up apart from something marginal and more about the feeling than anything else ?
I gave up trying to make one just by lazyness on archlinux. I did that many years when I used slackware.
But that's a thing to do at least once in a lifetime of course :-)
The advantage of having a kernel with more than what is needed is, that it's easier to change hardware if needed. I don't reduce the sizes of my kernels, the drawback is, that it takes around 90 minutes to compile a kernel on an AMD dual-core 2.1GHz, 4GB RAM, 2 jobs. Regarding to the used size or performance IMO it's useless to reduce the kernel's contend, simply don't load unneeded modules. IIRC the OP wishes to learn, IOW he'll do this as an exercise.
... this will build you a kernel with only the bare minimum needed to fulfill your current state; any modules not loaded at this time will not be built. you may still need to configure other features unrelated to modules.
I'd be interested to know what size your kernel is when you do that. I know Linux kernels have been built at 16Kb or something silly but then it couldn't actually do anything. When I do this for OpenBSD I get it down to about a quarter of stock at 2 megabytes and there are no modules even on OpenBSD by default. ________________________________________________________ Why not do something good every day and install BOINC. ________________________________________________________
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
We can dream for comprehensive. I presume you know about uncommenting in PKGBUILD and/or using the new nconfig or xconfig and the search functions etc.. You still have to hope Google can answer what you are wondering and hopefully that your not just wandering. ________________________________________________________ Why not do something good every day and install BOINC. ________________________________________________________
to, 2012-06-14 kello 15:59 +0200, Arno Gaboury kirjoitti:
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
nconfig has this nice option (in the old menuconfig too, just don't remember the button in there) to press the F2 button, to display a short description of the option. (Not all do have one but most.) Usually there is also a small note at the bottom of the description saying "If you don't know what this is you can probably say n here" (n meaning no, do not build this feature), there is also another one, which is basically the same, but is tells to enable the option instead.
On Jun 14, 2012 5:03 PM, "Jesse Juhani Jaara" <jesse.jaara@gmail.com> wrote:
to, 2012-06-14 kello 15:59 +0200, Arno Gaboury kirjoitti:
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
nconfig has this nice option (in the old menuconfig too, just don't remember the button in there) to press the F2 button, to display a short description of the option. (Not all do have one but most.) Usually there is also a small note at the bottom of the description saying "If you don't know what this is you can probably say n here" (n meaning no, do not build this feature), there is also another one, which is basically the same, but is tells to enable the option instead.
Good enough as for the Kernel and TY for the tips. As for my separate /usr, is it safe to move it back to system root, or better stay like that considering my nox is running smoothly?
On Thu, 2012-06-14 at 15:59 +0200, Arno Gaboury wrote:
Still looking for a good pointer for building my own Kernel 4.2 wjth comprehensive explanations of each sub menu of menu config.
For e.g. make oldconfig you can use the "?". Using this information with a search engine should give the wanted comprehensive explanations. But you even could search the Internet for CONFIG_FOO_BAR ;).
participants (9)
-
Alex Belanger
-
arnaud gaboury
-
Arno Gaboury
-
C Anthony Risinger
-
Jesse Juhani Jaara
-
Kevin Chadwick
-
Ralf Mardorf
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Rodrigo Rivas
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solsTiCe d'Hiver