[LEDE-DEV] How do you develop (compile) LEDE efficiently?

[Rafał Miłecki]

On 7 November 2016 at 02:18, Alberto Bursi <alberto.bursi at outlook.it> wrote:
> On 11/06/2016 09:24 PM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>> So far I was always using my notebook for the development. My
>> requirements were Intel i7 quad core + AMD GPU. I was using some
>> Samsung but it's GPU has died and I can't replace it (stupid
>> 216-0811000 chipset).
>>
>> I'm looking for a new notebook, but I can't find anything with i7 quad
>> core + AMD GPU. I may need to buy something with i7-6500U or i7-7500U
>> which may be too slow for compiling LEDE.
>>
>> How do you develop LEDE? Do you work on some powerful machine, or do
>> you compile it remotely somehow? If you do it remotely, do you mount
>> remote filesystem? I need a very good access to the build_dir for my
>> needs.
>>
>
> Might I ask why you need a dedicated GPU for in a development machine?
> You want to game on it too?
>
> Current Intel iGPUs are fine on linux as long as you don't want to play
> games (on windows they are better and allow light gaming).

Yes, after working for a year and half with acceleration disabled on
my Samsung (due to GPU lockups of broken chip) I wanted to start some
game finally ;)


> Also, in all modern laptops the NVIDIA gpu is not physically connected
> to outputs and is only used for 3D rendering, so you can keep it
> disabled without ill effects as the Intel iGPU is the one actually
> running everything in the hardware.
>
> In any case, i'd recommend to look at laptop assembler companies like
> pcspecialist.co.uk (for europe) as they usually offer some laptops with
> a quadcore i7 without a dedicated GPU, and have better features overall
> like fullHD screens and IPS screens, better batteries, you can choose to
> not install/pay for Windows and so on.
>
> If I had to compile LEDE remotely (I use a Xeon processor that is
> slightly better than a ivy bridge i7 so I don't really need that), I
> would keep the sources on remote filesystem on the server, probably nfs
> as it is the one with best performance, and  keep a SSH open to the
> server so I can ask a recompilation.
> It should not be noticeably different than doing things locally as long
> as you are connected through gigabit ethernet cable and don't do unusual
> things for development like moving multiple gigabytes of files around in
> the network folder.

Thanks, I'll give NFS a try to see how well it works for working in build_dir!

-- 
Rafał