Suggestions for setting up a computer for /e/OS building (and of course other Android Open Source versions...)

Using /e/OS Build /e/OS
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So here some suggestions for setting up a good computer to build /e/OS or other Android Open Source versions. I made a budget, standard and high end proposal. I did not take into account too expensive solutions like AMD Threadripper and servers. Operating system is free as it is Linux.
Since I do have more experience with AMD CPU, the suggestions are with those processors but Intel is certainly also a good choice. The advantage with the AMD CPUs is the they have a graphic unit inbuilt, so one do not need a graphics card. The prices are from Germany and may vary wherever you are located. I took my favourite shop so prices may be even lower when buying from different shops taking the lowest price.

Budget

CPU
1x AMD Ryzen™ 5 4600G, Prozessor
€ 119,90

Mainboard
1x ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0, Mainboard
€ 72,90

RAM
1x Patriot DIMM 32 GB DDR4-3200 , Arbeitsspeicher
€ 63,90

SDD
1x Festplatte (SSD): SAMSUNG 980 PRO 500 GB, SSD
€ 69,90

Case
1x Aerocool Prime v1, Tower-Gehäuse
€ 34,99

Power supply
1x Sharkoon SHP Bronze 500W, PC-Netzteil
€ 49,99

Total price around 411 €

Standard

CPU
1x AMD Ryzen™ 7 5700G, Prozessor
€ 184,90

Mainboard
1x ASRock B550M-HDV, Mainboard
€ 82,90

RAM
1x G.Skill DIMM 32 GB DDR4-3000 (2x 16 GB) Dual-Kit, Arbeitsspeicher
€ 64,90

SSD
1x Festplatte (SSD): SAMSUNG 980 PRO 1 TB, SSD
€ 79,90

Case
1x Aerocool Rift, Tower-Gehäuse
€ 39,99

Power Supply
1x be quiet! System Power 9 CM 400W, PC-Netzteil

Total price around 505 €

High-end

CPU
1x AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X, Prozessor
€ 619,00

Mainboard
1x ASUS PRIME X670-P WIFI, Mainboard
€ 289,00

CPU Cooler
1x be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, CPU-KĂźhler
€ 86,90

RAM
1x Kingston FURY DIMM 64 GB DDR5-6000 (2x 32 GB) Dual-Kit, Arbeitsspeicher
€ 250,00

SSD
1x Festplatte (SSD): Lexar NM790 4 TB, SSD
€ 227,90

Case
1x be quiet! PURE BASE 500DX Window, Tower-Gehäuse
€ 89,90

Power supply
1x be quiet! Pure Power 12M 750W, PC-Netzteil
€ 111,90

Total price around around 1600 €

Summing up, do not take less than 32 GB and only a M.2 SSD with 500 GB minimum. Prices are currently very low for RAM and SSD.
I would prefer even 64 GB of RAM and a fast M.2 SSD for building with at least 1 TB, its worth the price!

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I already got 128 GB RAM also to use partial as a ramdisk, that was the easy part but I didn’t come to build ;- )

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The hardware is the easier part. And even high-end hardware is of no use to me, because building custom ROMs is much more difficult for beginners to learn than it is presented here in the forum or on corresponding websites by those who can do it. A good example of this is Looking for some BUILDERS to teach / guide me

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Nice thread to have here, thanks @ronnz98 :smiley_cat:

Focusing on total prices only, it seems to me that Budget and Standard are too close.
It won’t be easy to lower the Budget, as building has some mandatory needs. So maybe the Standard may benefit a 100~200€ enhancement?

For your information, Intel processors also package an integrated GPU :wink:

I think that the absolute minimum for building is 16GB RAM and 768GB storage (500GB may not be enough for system and some heavy sources). The rest (CPU, storage type, …) is up to your patience!

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Sorry not a so good example because my goal is (not yet achieved) to build for a device that have a too little /system partition.

Not agree with that !
my 50€ computer (4x3.3ghz, 16Go, 2TB)
build /e/ for “jfltexx” in about 3h30 yesterday

That is realistic. MINIMUM

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Of course, the most sustainable solution would be to use an old computer or buy a used one. Still I would recommend to upgrade to 32 GB - memory is cheap and you also can buy used memory cheaper.
Also repacing a harddisk or SATA SSD with M.2 SSD will give a big performance boost

When building /e/OS-T you want have much fun with a minimal system. Might be ok for Q and R, but newer versions demands more resources

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Pardon, the reference was not meant to diminish your achievement, but to show what obstacles a beginner has to struggle with when building a custom ROM.

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Just be patient and take your time, be persistent. I made so much mistakes when I begun and now I chuckle on my own stupid errors I did when I started :slight_smile:

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I might write another how-to with repo using official supported lineage devices that are not (yet) supported by /e/OS. That should be the easiest start for unofficial builds

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The best place for that might be in the /e/ Docker Image README.md

IN fact the best place would be in the upstream LineageOSDocker Image README.md: I’m sure the maintainer would be very happy to receive a patch or Pull Request :wink:

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I went for old but propper build Workstations

50€ will only get this later this week
Fujitsu Primergx TX140 Workstation
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 4 core 8 threads
RAM: 32GB DDR3 ECC
RAID: 2× LSI SAS 9211-8 in IT-Mode

100€
Dell Precision T3600 Workstation
XeonÂŽ E5-1620 / 3.60 GHz 4 core 8 threads
1 x SSD: 480 GB SSD EMTEC X150
2 x HDD: 2TB WD Red
RAM: 32 GB DDR3 ECC

My little experience with using the /e - Docker just like an appliance started on a:

Old AMD A6-5200 is a mobile quad-core SoC for low-end laptops from 2013
which gave my a working ‘1.14-r-20230916-UNOFFICIAL-jactivelte.zip’ after
(16:46:12 (hh:mm:ss)) houres on my one and only try.

Waited to score this ‘Dell Precision T3600’ till last Sunday and got:

e-1.14-r-20231031-make-nz_UNOFFICIAL-jactivelte.zip
build completed successfully (01:31:52 (hh:mm:ss))

and about the same times for:
e-1.15-r-20231031-make-nz_UNOFFICIAL-jactivelte.zip
e-1.16-r-20231031-make-nz_UNOFFICIAL-jactivelte.zip
e-1.14-r-20231101-make-nz@UNOFFICIAL-s5neolte.zip
e-1.15-r-20231101-make-nz@UNOFFICIAL-s5neolte.zip
e-1.16-r-20231101-make-nz@UNOFFICIAL-s5neolte.zip

As for problems building…Yes got bitten now on T builds and do not understand what hit my repo, as all I ever did was "docker run… as per /e documentation "
But I really only wanted to use this “as is appliance” for getting regular UNOFFICIAL builds and once I got that I want to look into setting things up for ‘Overlays’, which has been my real goal.

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I’d also like to know/ask about file systems — anybod done some special set up?

As I use ZFS for a very long time I was gonna set it up on Ubuntu Server, but then took the short rout and rushed into just wanna build on this Dell Precision T3600 Workstation — so I went with defaults for minimal server 22.04, with out ZFS also because the SSD seemed a bit to small for snap shots.
But once hit by my repo problems, I sure wished I’d have sanp shots!

So, any Info on ZFS, BTRFS, bloke size, use of partitions, network storage smb/nfs?

To me, a good monitoring system seems a very good thing to have, too!?

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maybe a used server or workstation with Xenon or Epic CPU might be a good choice, but I dont have experience with this

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@piero you got no HT, just 4 plain Cores, right?
Seems like number of Cores/Threads plays a huge role, as I got half the build times with 4 core / 8 threads

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If you wanna have this in your living space at home, go with Workstations — well build, boot faster, smaller and mostly not so loud :wink:

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I thought about a used workstation but my current desktop PC is just too fast (AMD 7950X). And Threadripper is too expensive, even a used one

And I buy most of my hardware as outlet hardware and made good experience with this

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yes it is an i5 (2500) with only 4 threads.
motherboard is from 2011

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One more thing that came to my mind is to establish a benchmark for building eg. on a fixed version like /e/OS-R1.0 and fixed device like Samsung S5 klte. Just a thought…

UPDATE:
OK I made a start and took /e/OS-1.16.1 sources using the repo build way. As device I took the gta4xlwifi. The vendor files I took from Github themuppets.

The hardware I used was mainly:
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
ASUS PRIME X670E-PRO WIFI
Kingston FURY DIMM 32 GB DDR5-6000 (1x 32 GB) unfortunately the other RAM module was not working… I will test later when I receive the module back and hopefully now working with more RAM if this has an impact
SSD Lexar NM790 (2000 GB, M.2 2280)

Build time was 1h 3min and 32 sec.

Well, since the vendor files might change the results might also vary in the future but nonetheless I think this is a good start.
Would also be interesting if using docker style more or less time would be needed (Preconditions: the /e/OS sources were download prior starting docker build)

Update: I did now 2 other builds and time was +/- 30 sec from first build.

I did also a build with:
export USE_CCACHE=1
ccache -M 100G
export CCACHE_COMPRESS=1
Which took 1:h 5min 50 sec. So it seem that cache has a slight negative impact for my system

Next steps are build with a SATA/600 SSD, without HT and with more RAM…

(1) With SATA SSD SAMSUNG 870 QVO 4 TB: 1:03:37h. So no difference to M.2 SSD…
(2) Without SMT/HT: Build time was 1:15:42h
(3) More RAM: Now with 64 GB RAM: Build time was 1:01:30

So up to now the conclusions are for my hardware:
(I) Fast M.2 SSD does not improve build performance over SATA/600 SSD
(II) Cache is slightly decreasing build performance
(III) Without SMT/HT: performance decrease about 15%
(IV) More RAM: minimal improvement

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OK, please share the local_manifest…

i assuming you talk about a “e-1.16.1-t” build,
so i start with :
repo init -u https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/releases.git -b refs/tags/v1.16.1-t

The as possible “oldest / cheapest / minimum” hardware I used is :
( 30€ / PC-base + 20€ / memory-upgrade = 50€ / build-machine )

Mother Board : intel H61 / HP p6-2038fr (from 2011)
CPU : intel i5 (2500) 4 core → 3.30 Ghz (4 threads)
RAM : bus 1333Mhz DDR3 → 2x 8 Gb = 16 Gb (dual channel)
HD : bus SATA2 3Gb/s → (system & stockage) 1000 Gb + 500 Gb (sources & build dedicated)

Build in process

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I don’t have it anymore :wink: