i586 kernels [Was: very common kernel modules slow down the boot process]

Mike Cronenworth mike at cchtml.com
Tue Apr 8 14:55:08 UTC 2008


-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re: i586 kernels [Was: very common kernel modules slow down 
the	boot process]
From: Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de>
To: Development discussions related to Fedora <fedora-devel-list at redhat.com>
Date: 04/08/2008 03:47 AM

> On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 09:30 +0200, Gianluca Sforna wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 4:18 PM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
>>>  Actually, my old i586 system works quite smoothly with FC8 and better it
>>>  did with some older Fedoras.
>>>
>> Last time I tried (around FC6) I was not able to use Fedora for one
>> little i586 class box¹ I have around due to the absence of a
>> corresponding kernel.
> I've been hit by this bug myself ca. during the FC6/FC7 time-frame.
> AFAICT, the cause had been a bug somewhere in installer , which had
> caused installing on i586 to install the wrong (i686) kernel.
> 
> [User visible symptoms had been the installer installing i686 packages,
> and using some i686 tls glibc stuff - There is a BZ somewhere.
> AFAICT, this is fixed in FC8.]
> 
>> Did something change
> Yes, plenty has changed between FC6 and FC8.
> 
> Noteworthy: 
> * FC8 yum uses much less memory than its predecessors.
> * This silly installer-bug finally has been fixed.
> * Packaging is more granular.
> * rpm has been improved (FC6's rpm/yum occasionally killed the rpmdb)
> 
> Other tricks I am applying:
> * selinux=0 - The amount of memory SELinux uses, causes kernel-OOMs
> early while booting.
> * sufficient swap - My i586 uses 128MB (2xRAM, inherited from this
> machine's past). More swap probably is advisable.
> * boot into runlevel 3 (way less memory consuming than runlevel 5).
> Switch off everything you don't really need (e.g. rhgb, usb,
> NetworkManager, PulseAudio, avahi, etc.).
> * Disable yum-updatesd - I update this machine by manually running yum,
> occasionally running selective updates (Occasionally, update-floods tend
> to cause OOMs).
> * Slim down the static installation (number of packages) and dynamic
> installation (daemons/services) to your personal "required" minimum.
> Fedora's default configuration is pretty generous.
> 
>>  (e.g. the i586 variant is built again)
> AFAICT, it has always been built.
> 
>>  or am I missing something else?
> Bring along a lot of time ... installation/updates are really slow ;)
> 

Not to sound *too* negative, but is there a donation fund where I can 
put $5 so you guys with i586s can upgrade? Good lord.

I'm sure if you melted down the gold, copper, and steel in the i586 
computers you guys have you could *easily* afford a Core 2 Quad with 4 
gigs of DDR2.

> Ralf
> 
> 
> 




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