el Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:06:59 -0400 Alastair Couper <kalepa@xxxxxxxxx> escribi?: > 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 -- --
