Re: specs for a netbsd build system?

[Justin Cormack <justin%specialbusservice.com@localhost>]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh%kathe.in@localhost> 
wrote:
> hello,
>
> looks like my current machine is dying, hence all the problems with
> even installing netbsd 6.1.4 on it.
>
> i would be going for a new machine, primarily with the intent of
> custom building netbsd for a particular tinkering project.
>
> i have no idea about what kind of hardware would be required for
> performing an entire netbsd build within acceptable time-frames,
> say 1 hour (without x win).

I am not exactly sure how long a full build takes on my various
machines, of that order. The biggest improvement is to do incremental
builds, or if it suits what you are doing to use rump kernel (10
minute full build).

> may i please get advice on rough specifications for the same?
> stuff like;
> 1. preferable processor (intel! amd!),
> 2. processing power (clock rate, number of cores, cache, etc),

Basically you get roughly what you pay for here, but in a non linear
way, so paying twice as much might give you say a 20% speed up. Cores
help, but my 4 core fast machine (Xeon 3.5GHz) is a bit faster than my
8 core slower machine (Atom 2.4GHz) in compiling overall.

> 3. memory (size and type),

Builds do not need all that much memory, you wont see much benefit
over say 4GB. The more cores you have the more memory you will need as
you can do more parallel builds.

> 4. hard disk (space and type),

SSDs do give a performance increase, and are much cheaper now,
especially if you do not need that much space.

>
> i have a budget of around us$600.

Not sure what things cost in US... but I usually recommend spending a
reasonably balanced amount on the different components.