I have installed Simply Mepis on my Pentium 4 box and run apt-build in order to optimize it for the i686 processort.
So far it worked fine.
I would like to try further optimization, installing the kernel for i686.
did anyone do this on Mepis?
Should I try the apt-get install way?

thanks

What do you mean by the kernel for i686? Does this exist? I think you'll have to optimize it for your processor. But the only way I am aware of is to change the compile options in the /etc/make.conf file

isnt it there a kernel-image-2.6.12-686.deb?

Searching for "kernel-image-2.6.11" on packages.debian.org shows the available kernels for P4 processors as well as several others.

I've used both kernel-image-2.6.11-1-686-smp (SMP for HT-enabled P4's) and kernel-image-2.6.11.6_MEPIS.3.3_i386.deb on HT-enabled P4 processors and they both work well, but I couldn't really tell you the optimization factor of each of them.

Try searching around for optimizations for your processor. Upgrading to Debian's new GCC 4.0.1 transition seems to help a great deal with optimizing my programs, especially with apt-build. I'm not sure if anything I've just said makes any sense or is even remotely correct, but I hope it helps ya with your question.

thanks,
this is more or less what i was looking for, even if your final warning give me some chills, LOL.
I have tried apt-build on Mepis and it worked well, maybe the improvement in speed was not dramatic, thats why Im curious about the i686 kernel option.
keep you posted