I think the installation guide should include the following informational guideline: When installing Gentoo on any modern machine for the first time, it is advisable to be sure you're not setting yourself up for a failing installation process. Specifically, heat is the enemy and it can have a significant effect on your installation success or failure. Even if you have already successfully installed and run other distributions such as Redhat, Mandrake and SuSE on your target machine, you can still fail when installing Gentoo. This is because a Gentoo installation is a 'compile from source' installation. One of the single most stressful loads on any computer is the process of compiling source. It is not only possible, but highly probable that your CPU temperature will rise during a Gentoo install by about 10 degrees centigrade. This is rise of almost 20 degrees fairenheit. For a typical AMD Athlon-XP running with an OEM cooling fan, the 'at rest' temp. can be around 55C. Adding 10C brings this up to 65C. At around 75C such a system will start to misbehave and at 80C, these systems will almost always freeze. If you have a 'closed' case with inadequate ventilation, you may be running 'at rest' at 65C already. So adding another 10C during compile times will push you right into unreliable territory. Symptons you should look for include aborted compiles of large packages such as GCC. If your GCC compile aborts in the 'java' section for example, the first thing you should check for is a heat problem. :-) png attatchment showing heat rise included. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:
Created attachment 9013 [details] gcc9.2.2-r3-07.png It's not actually gcc that's compiling but you get the idea. Note the temerature differential of 55C to 65C. BTW - this is after I vaccumed my _after market_ CPU cooler which was noticably cooler that the original cooler! The dips coorespond to periods when packages were being downloaded.
I actually think this would be a good inclusion in the installation documentation; it might abate some of the "bug reports" due to "Gentoo crashing" upon installation WRT heat issues. Besides, it sounds really cool that Gentoo pushes the limits of your hardware. Kinda like cranking out that extra 200RPMs on your souped-up ${MUSCLE_CAR} :)
The installation guide is already quite long. Adding this troubleshooting note, while informative, will make the installation guide even longer. Not to mention that this opens up the door for additional troubleshooting requests. The forums work quite well for troubleshooting/helpful advice. If this issue is common enough, it may warrant an inclusion in the FAQ. For the moment, however, I'm tempted to close this bug with WONTFIX resolution.
I tend to agree with paulo. If your hardware fails, then you have bought bad hardware. Any decent computer should be able to have the CPU work 24/7. If we add a note about heating problems with CPU, then we should add notes about non-ECC memory too, and about passing trucks that make the floor tremble, and... Well, ok, this is a bit exaggerated, but still :)
Closing with WONTFIX
Moving these so we can remove the "Install CD" component from "Gentoo Linux". I apologize to everyone for this spam, but according to the bugzilla developers, this is the only reasonable way to do this.
