Hey group,

I'm thinking about replacing the old Pentium4 1,6ghz NW / Asus p4s333, with
Athlon64 3000+ /**MSI*K8T-NEO2-FIR.

I have a look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD_64
where it says that "If you feel like gaming on an AMD 64 system you're
probably best off booting to a 32bit gentoo installation although a chroot
may work as well." Why is that?. As I understand, 32bit apps(and thereby
games) run fine on a**64bit*OS?.*Also,
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/a...?part=2&chap=4
describes how to create 32bit compatibility.......why will this not work
(properly) with Doom3 and UT2k4 ?

When converting, how can this be done?. As I'm not changing HDs, I hope to
be able to do something, that is as close as possible to a relatively simple
system recompile.

Can I recompile kernel to match new MB, shutdown, plug in the new MB/CPU,
and startup. Then I should be running 32bit in the 64bit system.
Then unmerge the packages that don't compile on 64bit(like OpenOffice). Make
the appropriate changes in /etc/make.conf, and then.....?

Kind regards,

Stig

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:53:47 +0100, Stig Mogensen wrote:

> Hey group,
>
> I'm thinking about replacing the old Pentium4 1,6ghz NW / Asus p4s333,
> with Athlon64 3000+ /**MSI*K8T-NEO2-FIR.

IMHO, get an athlon-xp 2500-3000 and save yourself headaches and money.
With the 333 bus you can save by getting PC2700 memory too. If you like to
overclock, the 2500 is the best because you can get it to 2800 speed
easily with no headaches or overheating warning.

There have been reports of compilation problems with the 64 and arguments
over speed improvement. Many programs will continue to run in 32 bit mode
regardless. If that's the case, you won't get any improvement with a 64
over a comparably clocked 32 bit one.

Only a native 64 bit program will show any speed improvement. Of course,
where you're starting from, you'll be wowed no matter what you get



> I have a look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD_64 where it says that
> "If you feel like gaming on an AMD 64 system you're probably best off
> booting to a 32bit gentoo installation although a chroot may work as
> well." Why is that?. As I understand, 32bit apps(and thereby games) run
> fine on a**64bit*OS?.*

Sure, but you get none of the advantages of 64 bit.

> Also,
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/a...?part=2&chap=4
> describes how to create 32bit compatibility.......why will this not work
> (properly) with Doom3 and UT2k4 ?
>

Dangers lurk!

> When converting, how can this be done?. As I'm not changing HDs, I hope
> to be able to do something, that is as close as possible to a relatively
> simple system recompile.
>

Get a 32 but athlon-xp. Save yourself the headaches!

> Can I recompile kernel to match new MB, shutdown, plug in the new
> MB/CPU, and startup. Then I should be running 32bit in the 64bit system.
> Then unmerge the packages that don't compile on 64bit(like OpenOffice).
> Make the appropriate changes in /etc/make.conf, and then.....?

That could work, but don't unmerge. If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then
I would suggest compiling everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the
kernel at 64, but there have been reports of errors.

>
> Kind regards,
>
> Stig

HTH

So anyway, it was like, 10:58 CET Feb 11 2005, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
Peter was all like, "Dude,

> If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then I would suggest compiling
> everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the kernel at 64, but there
> have been reports of errors.

I do not know of these reports of which you speak.

FWIW to the OP, I've been running my amd64 (well, actually ~amd64)
since april last year without major problems.

The only thing I can't make it do properly right now seems to be
helping my P4 with some compiles via distccd since I'm unable (well,
unwilling, more like it) to manually compile a working toolchain for
that arch and the automated tools don't quite work for me.

I've not seen any problems what so ever with the 64-bit binaries
and/or compiles. Currently using the 2005.0 profile, which admittedly
still has a couple of quirks, but it's doing fine nonetheless.

--
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Perth ---> *
11:13:01 up 109 days, 23:39, 5 users, load average: 0.28, 0.81, 1.29
Linux 2.6.9 x86_64 GNU/Linux Registered Linux user #261729

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:19:36 +0100, Johan Lindquist wrote:

> So anyway, it was like, 10:58 CET Feb 11 2005, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
> Peter was all like, "Dude,
>
>> If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then I would suggest compiling
>> everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the kernel at 64, but there
>> have been reports of errors.
>
> I do not know of these reports of which you speak.

http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+amd64+problems

snip.....

For me, the safe way right now is to stay 32. JM2C.

Peter a écrit :
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:19:36 +0100, Johan Lindquist wrote:
>
>
>>So anyway, it was like, 10:58 CET Feb 11 2005, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
>>Peter was all like, "Dude,
>>
>>
>>>If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then I would suggest compiling
>>>everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the kernel at 64, but there
>>>have been reports of errors.
>>
>>I do not know of these reports of which you speak.
>
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+amd64+problems
>
> snip.....
>
> For me, the safe way right now is to stay 32. JM2C.

http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+amd64+problems
around 90,300 results

http://www.google.com/search?q=kerne...+problems+-2.4
48,300

http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+-amd64+problems
around 6,220,000 results...

Does that mean that there are less problems with amd64???

The main problem with amd64 is not bugs in the kernel but some
closed-soure applications (realcodecs, win32codecs, flash, etc)

So anyway, it was like, 12:11 CET Feb 11 2005, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
Peter was all like, "Dude,
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:19:36 +0100, Johan Lindquist wrote:
>> So anyway, it was like, 10:58 CET Feb 11 2005, you know? Oh, and, yeah,
>> Peter was all like, "Dude,

>>> If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then I would suggest compiling
>>> everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the kernel at 64, but
>>> there have been reports of errors.
>>
>> I do not know of these reports of which you speak.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+amd64+problems

<http://www.google.com/search?q=fatal+accident+crossing+the+street>

> For me, the safe way right now is to stay 32. JM2C.

Fair enough.

--
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Perth ---> *
12:48:13 up 110 days, 1:14, 5 users, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.09
Linux 2.6.9 x86_64 GNU/Linux Registered Linux user #261729

Johan Lindquist wrote:
> Peter was all like, "Dude,
>
>>http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel+amd64+problems
>
> <http://www.google.com/search?q=fatal+accident+crossing+the+street>

Nicely done *g*

--
Ben M.

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:51:33 +0100, Johan Lindquist wrote:

snip...
> <http://www.google.com/search?q=fatal+accident+crossing+the+street>
> Fair enough.

LOL!

In article <pan.2005.02.11.09.58.01.386660@localhost.com>,
Peter <peter@localhost.com> writes:
>
> On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:53:47 +0100, Stig Mogensen wrote:
>
>> Hey group,
>>
>> I'm thinking about replacing the old Pentium4 1,6ghz NW / Asus p4s333,
>> with Athlon64 3000+ /**MSI*K8T-NEO2-FIR.
>
> IMHO, get an athlon-xp 2500-3000 and save yourself headaches and money.

IMHO, the AMD64 platform is stable enough for productivity work. I use it
as my main workstation, and it's no less stable for me than x86 versions
of Linux. It does fall down with respect to a few programs (mostly
commercial ones), though....

> There have been reports of compilation problems with the 64 and arguments
> over speed improvement. Many programs will continue to run in 32 bit mode
> regardless. If that's the case, you won't get any improvement with a 64
> over a comparably clocked 32 bit one.

I don't know if I'd say "many" programs require 32-bit mode. A few do,
sure, but they're mostly commercial programs. (OpenOffice.org is a major
open source exception to this rule. WINE's another one, but of course
it's used to run 32-bit Windows programs, so I'm not sure a 64-bit WINE
would really help much at this point.)

>> I have a look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD_64 where it says that
>> "If you feel like gaming on an AMD 64 system you're probably best off
>> booting to a 32bit gentoo installation although a chroot may work as
>> well." Why is that?. As I understand, 32bit apps(and thereby games) run
>> fine on a**64bit*OS?.*

The problem is that some 32-bit programs, particularly games, are very
finicky about their environments, and they'll choke when run from a
64-bit AMD64 OS. I'm not a big gamer myself, so I can't say I've got a
lot of personal experience with this. (The only commercial game I play in
Linux is "Civilization: Call to Power," and it works OK for me, with some
sound caveats that I don't believe are AMD64-specific.) If you're
concerned about specific games, I suggest you do some research on them
and the AMD64. Most non-game 32-bit programs don't push the envelope as
much, and so run just fine in a 64-bit boot.

> If you MUST have a 64 bit proc, then
> I would suggest compiling everything as 32 for now. You COULD try the
> kernel at 64, but there have been reports of errors.

I disagree -- or at least, I disagree for some people/uses. As I said,
I'm using an AMD64 system (with everything that will work that way
compiled as a 64-bit application) and it's been fine for close to a year.
Keep in mind that there have been reports of errors, as you say, with
32-bit x86 kernels, too; you can ALWAYS find reports of errors for ANY
program. I lack quantitative data, but my personal impression is that the
AMD64 platform is stable.

That said, I might agree with the recommendation to stick with a 32-bit
OS on AMD64 if a person is heavily into gaming or some other application
that causes problems in 64-bit mode. As I'm not a heavy gamer, though,
I've not been following this area very closely, so if somebody with more
AMD64 gaming experience chimes in, take that person's advice over mine.
Of course, it's also possible to install both 32- and 64-bit OSs on an
AMD64 system and switch between them with LILO, GRUB, or whatever. (I've
got quite a few of both installed on my system, although it runs 64-bit
Gentoo 98%+ of the time.)

More broadly speaking, on the 32- vs. 64-bit thing, there's very little
practical advantage to 64-bit computing for most users at this point. The
biggie is if you need lots of RAM -- ordinary desktop users will start
running into the x86 4GB memory barrier in another couple of years, and
advanced users are already there. Although the AMD64 problems aren't,
IMHO, as big as you're making them out to be, they are bigger than 32-bit
x86 problems, so sticking with 32-bit x86 probably makes sense for most
people at this point. Of course, this newsgroup isn't frequented by "most
people." Gentoo users tend to like to push the envelope a bit, and IMHO
the AMD64 platform is currently safe enough for modest envelope-pushing
while retaining the option of falling back to a 32-bit environment if you
find it's necessary.

FWIW, I wrote up a piece on AMD64 computing for _Linux Magazine_ close to
a year ago. Given how fast everything's changing, it's now a bit dated,
but there's still some relevant information in there:

http://www.linux-mag.com/2004-07/athlon_01.html

--
Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:59:53 +0000, Rod Smith wrote:

all snipped.

an excellent post, Rod. I learned something. Thanks.