Subject: custom system build experience.
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Leo Ngatia <leongatia@yahoo.co.uk>
List: current-users
Date: 10/20/2003 15:44:48
Hello.

I've used NetBSD for some time now and like it a lot. I decided to build a 
personal custom NetBSD system with optimized flags and after a few 
frustrating retries, I found out a few things. These are probably known here, 
just thought I'd share my experiences. 

 I realised that building a distribution with MANZ=YES set in mk.conf causes 
the kernel build to fail at checkflist since the listings in the 
distrib/lists do not have a .gz extension for the man pages. Is there a way 
around this?

Mozilla refuses to install, even from sources. It builds everything and 
crashes at moz-install. Mozilla-bin refuses to work (segmentation fault) same 
with Netscape 7. Communicator, Opera and Quake work well, so I know linux 
emulation works.

Blender sources make references to old C++ standard strstream instead of 
gcc-3.3.1 stringstream. I had to edit 2 files (can't remember which, though 
*slaps self*).

How do you set optimize flags for X sources? I tried adding them to NetBSD.cf 
in the config directry as documented, but it just wouldn't work, yet the 
compile kept echoing flags from the same file (NBSD_THREADS in particular). 
Is there a different file?

Kde arts is not very stable. Maybe the optimization was the problem, but I've 
had problems with it before. xmms refuses to work well with it (crashes on 
"play another file") and gmplayer crashes often too. Also, setting Netscape 
plugins support to kde fails to build libkcm_nsplugins library. I searched 
the net and the problem reported was supposedly corrected (looking at the 
PLIST), however, the library does not exist in the build directory...it's not 
being built.

I've enjoyed exploring the customization of my personal system. Since I don't 
have a powerful graphics card, I can only tell  it's faster due to faster 
booting, kde's seemingly quicker response, maybe a little faster file 
manipulation (tar and cp).

I liked the quick install of NetBSD since I could reformat and reinstall base 
system in under 15 minutes if I did something wrong. I've found it very 
consistent in design and easy to configure. I intend to have a lot of 
productive work and play on my "brand new" system.  

Thanks.