# Via C3 optimizations for /etc/make.conf



## shepper (Mar 3, 2013)

I have a new install on an old Via C3 cpu desknote and was going to attempt to install a lightweight desktop.  I have an updated portsnap and will be starting from scratch.

Questions:

1)  The Via C3 does not have a full i686 instruction set.  Will I gain much by setting
[CMD=""]CPUTYPE=c3[/CMD]
in
/etc/make.conf
Will certain files not build?  I intend to use alot of ncurses based applications.
2)  Would it be worthwhile to build a new kernel with Via C3 optimizations?


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## xibo (Mar 3, 2013)

The build config file is /etc/make.conf, not /etc/mk.conf, and the CPU optimization variable is called *CPUTYPE*, not *CPUTTYPE*. You won't gain any mentionworth performance on setting that variable.


all ports "should" build
2) no


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## shepper (Mar 3, 2013)

@xibo

Thanks.  I tracked down the example in
/usr/share/examples/etc
and came back to correct my mistake.  You beat me to it
I recall in Slackware that the maintainer dropped a xine front end because it would only build with i686 optimizations.  I am unable to run i686 optimized linux distro (like Arch Linux) on this particular machine.

Given:

I am building from ports
The machine is old and slow (800mHz cpu, 512mb RAM) by today's standards
I was hoping to squeeze every optimization out.


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## xibo (Mar 3, 2013)

Those i686/pentium3-ports (mostly categorized graphics and multimedia I guess) exist over here, too. However, since "good software is written in C" some ports offer C/C++/whatever fallbacks to the potentially funky handwritten assembly language procedures. Therefore, make sure to disable any options that sound like "machine specific optimization", "vendor optimization", "written in assembly", ...  configurable in ports.


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