[asong26]

Originally Posted by haxen

Asong, please update us:

1. is there a new stage 4 tarball that you recommend?

2. any updates to the CFLAGS or configs from above post?

3. any other recommendations or links for installing Gentoo?

4. how are you doing with your sound & vid drivers? any luck?

many thanks.

1. I do not recommend the latest stage4 tarball for now. The 64-bit userland is very sluggish with VLC and MPlayer. Also, it is vital to enable fbcon and directfb libraries for VLC and MPlayer. The bummer is that these two libraries are not available for the PPC64 version.
2. Here's my latest /etc/make.conf file contents. You should have good results with these settings for most of the apps including VLC and MPlayer:

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.

CFLAGS="-mcpu=G5 -O2 -maltivec -mabi=altivec -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
LDFLAGS="-wl,-O1"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"

USE="aac amr cflags dga dv enca livecd musepack openal v4l2 x264 h264 ffmpeg xanim tga rtc nas dxr3 imagemagick mmap mng modplug vidix xvmc altivec nptl nptlonly samba x ssl jpeg mpeg perl png truetype xml zlib ipv6 dvd dvdread dvdnav matroska xvid alsa a52 aalib avahi bidi cdda cddb corba daap directfb dts dvb fbcon flac ggi httpd libcaca libnotify live mod nsplugin optimisememory rtsp shout skins speex stream svga theora upnp v4l vcd vlm mp3 mp4 mp3a mp4a wxwindows xine-lib xv dkbfft threads -build -debug -doc -theora -arts -dga -esd -ggi -opengl -sdl -svg joystick"

# This should not be changed unless you know exactly what you are doing. You
# should probably be using a different stage, instead.

CHOST="powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/root/livecd/overlays/portage"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp/portage"
PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://ftp-atl.osuosl.org/pub/gentoo-ps3/grp32/All"
FEATURES="parallel-fetch"

3. Recommendations:

The GRP pre-compiled packes in the repository (PORTAGE_BINHOST="http://ftp-atl.osuosl.org/pub/gentoo-ps3/grp32/All") has pretty good stuff in it already compiled. For most part, these packages work pretty well on PS3. So, for the WMs such as GNOME, KDE and XFCE, I recommend pulling these precompiled packages, as there isn't really that big of a performance boost. But if you want functions that these binaries don't have, then you would need to compile your own. To check what has been enabled in these binaries do this (kdebase example):

emerge -pvG kdebase

You should see this:

[binary R ] kde-base/kdebase-3.5.5-r1 USE="arts cups ldap opengl pam ssl -d ebug -hal -ieee1394 -java -kdeenablefinal -kdehiddenvisibility -lm_sensors -logi tech-mouse -openexr -samba -xcomposite -xinerama -xscreensaver -zeroconf"

'-' means that these were removed from the binary, and ones without the '-' means that these were enabled with the binary. So in the above example, the kde precompiled binaries will give you: arts cups ldap oepngl pam ssl If you simply do emerge -pv kdebase, you'll get feed back of what will be installed on your machine based on your use flags. But as you can see above, -pvG will tell you how that binary was already compiled using these settings. If the above settings are good enough for you, then just install it by simply removing 'p' (pretend) and do: emerge -vG kdebase. Same goes for GNOME, MPlayer and XFCE.

For me however, this wasn't good enough. OpenGL never really worked on framebuffer mode on any apps I've tested. Therefore, there is no need to have bloated openGL related items that will only make the file sizes bigger, with no added value in performance. It may even degrade performance. If you see my /etc/make.conf contents above, you'll see that I've added '-opengl' flag in the USE section. This tells portage that any apps that use openGL by default, to turn it off, and compile it without the openGL libraries, so on and so forth.

Installing samba should be the first thing you do if you want integrated networking with the windows within your WM environment. Once samba is installed, then you can install your WM (GNOME, KDE, XFCE). And since my /etc/make.conf file already has sama in it, samba integration to all WMs and any other apps will be built in automatically whenever you emerge an app that may leverage samba fire either streaming, or direct network access.

When using emulators, or media players, try to stay away from using GNOME and KDE. These two things are serious memory hogs. That's easier than said, since there are so many useful apps within these WMs. So here's what I do: I've installed KDE, GNOME, XFCE and Fluxbox. I use KDM so that I can choose which WM to log onto at the login screen. For the most part, I use XFCE. It has good enough 'eye-candy', and it can be compiled with gnome and kde flags in the USE flags. If you do this, then you'll be able to use XFCE (Very fast, and memory efficient) to integrated GNOME or KDE apps and tasks bars on the fly basis as you need them. For example: The command prompt in XFCE is a POS. Very basic, and simple (to reduce memory and CPU usage). But I enjoy having the ability to select text and copy / paste using my mouse on the command prompt as you can on KDE or GNOME variants. So, simply run XFCE, and use the command prompt on KDE or GNOME: Simply create a new menu, or type in 'kconsole' in the command prompt. This will bring up the KDE version of the command prompt. This is all possible, since the KDE and GNOME integrations were compiled. You can even use KDE's bars and docks within XFCE if you want. But, I keep it light, and only call the apps you need. For text editing, I use gedit from GNOME. Works like a charm.

Web Browsing: No need to compile your own. Just use the pre-compiled binary (emerge -vG mozilla-firefox) This will download and install the firefox 2 for you. However, if you want other flags included such as java, then you'd need to compile your own. On the 64-bit userland, there are some issues of compiling firefox, but on the 32bit side, there are no issues.

VLC and MPlayer. if you've compiled these apps as I have, don't muck around with audio device section of these apps. It will create problems. You can see from the above example, that I've disabled all sound devices such as SDL, OSS from the my system, and only allowed ALSA to compiled, then these apps will use whatever's available, and that's ALSA. There is no need to touch this settings. However, on the video front, you will need to make some changes. Only use x-11 display. Nothing else will work. Also, make sure that fbcon and directfb flags are enabled in the make.conf file above as I have done. These two libraries (fbcon for MPlayer, and directfb for VLC) are critical in improving frame buffering performance. You can just leave these 2 flags on the USE sections, and the applications will pick up whatever it needs that pertains to their own environment. This is the convenience of using a global flag (make.conf vs. /etc/portage/package.use)

Emulators: I am seeing some excellent results with xmame. However, xmame alone will not allow you to access all the features of mame very easily for every game. I would recommend emerging xmame first, and then gxmame. Once done, open up your /etc/groups file, and look for a line that says games. Add your username on there using other examples in that same file. This alone will not allow you to play the games. You'll need to set the correct permissions on the following directories:

/usr/share/games/
/usr/games/

I was too lazy to add user specific permission on these directories, so I've cheated using root's power. As root, I typed in:

chmod -R 777 /usr/share/games/
chmod -R 777 /usr/games/

chmod -R 777 basically tells the system to allow anyone from anywhere to come in and read / modify these directories, and anything else under them. It work for me, since I am not running a secured multiuser environment in my living room. I leave that work to my router.


For mame, the rom files can get pretty big. And if you have your roms stored on your windows computer, then use gxmame to specify the rom directory on your PC as mapped by samba application.

Samba: Install this, as this will allow you to access your PC as if it was your own PS3 file directory. Once samba is installed, use this command and modify it to suit your needs:

First, make a directory for your mountpoint.

mkdir /mnt/winD

From here, I am going to reserve this directory for mounting my Windows D Drive.
mbmount //mycomputer/D$ /mnt/winD -o username=windowsUserID,password=WindowsPassword,ui d=1000,umask=000

That's it. If you don't get an error, then it's successful. Now launch VLC or MPlayer, and open file, browse, and go to /mnt/winD directory. You should now see your D drive. From here, you can just open any media files, or even copy files back and forth via command prompt.

For gxmame, go to directories option, and add /mnt/winD/mame/roms/ to the roms path section. Obviously, your directory structure will be different, but you get the idea...

Until next time. Have fune! Oh, BTW: I highly recommend, you disable sound in KDE, and I double highly recommend that you use XFCE when playing videos or emulation, as it will not tax your system as much as KDE, and espcially GNOME (Biggest memory hog of all WMs)

See ya.