64 bit - yes or no?

[espique]

Hi,

I just upgraded my system to a Athlon64 base and now I am wondering if it is reasonable to go for a 64bit Linux. Are there any major drawbacks? Or should I just use the I386 version?

Thanks,
Sascha

[legolas]

Greeting from a fellow european :p

Let me put it this way.

Which version you install is basically up to you... but *I wish I could* upgrade to Athlon 64, just for the sake of installing Fedora 64bit on it....

And coming to think of it, why use a 32bit OS on a 64bit platform when you have a chance not to? Reminds me of the days of DOS/Win3.1 (16bit) on 386/486 processors (32bit)...

There should be no drawbacks only some advantages, except *maybe* a little stability, but if you're installing a home or development machine, why not? ;-)

It should be some major fun, excuse me if I envy you a bit.

I upgraded to P4 only 6 months ago, so I have no valid excuse to upgrade for another 6 months or so.. *bummer* :-D

[espique]

I am just worried that certain things just don't work yet or aren't available. Like drivers etc.

[Shadow Skill]

LOL you should have waited the new pciE amd 64 boards should be out by the end of the month...I'm splurging this december. :D

[JLF_65]

To answer your original question, it is worth it NOW to run 64bit Fedora Core. Six months ago, it was a toss up - many things hadn't been converted to 64bit yet and the 32bit ones had library dependency problems in 64bit FC2. Now most of the programs everyone uses are all 64bit, and I haven't seen any trouble running the 32bit programs in 64bit FC3t3.

Get the official release of FC3, out today, and feel the joy of 64bit computing. Note: it will take a few days for the FC3 repositories to fill up. They just opened today and many of the FC2 64bit aps haven't made it into the FC3 section yet.

[bärtil]

but.. if you want use wireless networking you will have to wait.. no drivers yet..

[k4dgw]

With the release of FC3, this information is SLIGHTLY dated, but in my searches it seemed to be the clearest explanation of the issues. Good luck, and enjoy.

http://www.linuxtx.org/amd64faq.html

Dave
-=K4DGW=-

[tummetot]

Fedora Core 3 64 bits is very nice, fast also.
So far I've had 1 problem.
Flash plugin didn't work on firefox 64 bits.
So after installing firefox for i386 en flash plugin all is working fine.

Compiling times are really fast on amd64 with Fedora 64 bits, I don't now why but they are.

And Cool 'n Quiet is working after installation :)

[jazzyrabbit]

I have just download this and it is rubbish, my machine completely locked up after using it for 2 minutes.

Segment crash dumps all over the place.

I really want to get off Windows XP but i have yet to find a stable 64bit Linux and I have tried them all. :mad: :mad:

[marks_linux]

I have just download this and it is rubbish, my machine completely locked up after using it for 2 minutes.

Segment crash dumps all over the place.

I really want to get off Windows XP but i have yet to find a stable 64bit Linux and I have tried them all. :mad: :mad:

A bit more info perhaps ;) what hardware you running etc. Were you running anything in particular. Anything in your log files. (/var/log/boot.log) for example

The answer to things like this is sometimes trivial (except when its your machine locking up). I've never suffered crashes or lockups in Fedora on 32bit or 64bit - currently downloading FC3 right now.

Mark

[jazzyrabbit]

Fair comment

AMD 64 3200+
Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP
1024 RAM
70GB Raptor SATA (10,000 rpm) Boot Disk
Nvidia 5950

I try to launch Firebird or any desktop component using Gnome and I get segment faults in the message log.

Clean install from DVD no upgrade

[Dog-One]

I'll trade you straight across for my MSI K8N Neo-FSR, Athlon 64 2800, OCZ DDR400 512MB, nVidia Geforce 2 MX, Maxtor 30GB ATA133. It works with X86_64 nicely. But I will give you this much--the defaults from the install were far and away from optimal settings. I've tweaked my system considerably since day 1.

//edit: Just thought of something Rabbit, have you tested your memory? Linux tends to run the guts out of the hardware and if anything's not right, it will show up rather quickly. Segfaults tend to point to memory or a processor running way too hot.

[jazzyrabbit]

I completely stress tested my machine with memtest no faults.

I thought about the overheating but all of the Motherboard monitors tell me the core is all right.

The machine locks up when I run (ps) segfault.

I hate to say it but Windows XP (the devil child) runs without any faults for days.

Any more comments or utils to run on the machine would be useful.

I use Solaris Sparc all day at work may be I should use Solaris 10 for Intel when it comes out next week,

[Dog-One]

I completely stress tested my machine with memtest no faults.

I thought about the overheating but all of the Motherboard monitors tell me the core is all right.

The machine locks up when I run (ps) segfault.

I hate to say it but Windows XP (the devil child) runs without any faults for days.

Any more comments or utils to run on the machine would be useful.

I use Solaris Sparc all day at work may be I should use Solaris 10 for Intel when it comes out next week,Your hardware is probably fine then. How about BIOS ubgrades? I contacted MSI because my motherboard didn't fully support the ACPI spec with the latest public BIOS and they emailed me a beta BIOS that works fine. Worth a shot.

You may also want to try some kernel boot options as workarounds acpi= [HW,ACPI] Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
Format: { force | off | ht | strict }
force -- enable ACPI if default was off
off -- disable ACPI if default was on
noirq -- do not use ACPI for IRQ routing
ht -- run only enough ACPI to enable Hyper Threading
strict -- Be less tolerant of platforms that are not
strictly ACPI specification compliant.There is something that can be done to get your machine running FC3 if you really want to. I suppose Solaris 10 is valid option and might actually be a better fit since you use it at work. Your call.

[jazzyrabbit]

Ok tried acpi=off and machine stayed up for 5 minutes then error like this appear.

Nov 10 18:16:15 curly kernel: system-config-n[3821]: segfault at 0000000000009220 rip 0000002a95716b49 rsp
0000007fbfffd560 error 4
Nov 10 18:16:26 curly kernel: system-control-[3835]: segfault at 0000000000000001 rip 0000000000000001 rsp
0000007fbfffb938 error 14
Nov 10 18:16:33 curly ntpd[2478]: synchronized to LOCAL(0), stratum 10
Nov 10 18:16:33 curly ntpd[2478]: kernel time sync disabled 0041

[marks_linux]

How long does it stay up and running without the GUI desktop running. i.e. console only. May be worth a try to to prove/disprove it will run without the windowing environment compilcating things as a starting point.

Good luck with it!

[jazzyrabbit]

I can see where your coming from but Linux without a GUI is like going back to the old Slackware distro of 7 years ago.

But I will have ago just about to try Redhat Enterprise beta 2 x86_64 as a `none` free version I am hoping this is more stable.

[jazzyrabbit]

We might be there, amazing how you feel better after a quick flash.

Flashed my K8NNXP (I think) to F13 from giga-byte machine been up for a whole 15 minutes now, without any ACPI flags disabled.

Hope this is it

Thanks

[marks_linux]

I can see where your coming from but Linux without a GUI is like going back to the old Slackware distro of 7 years ago.

But I will have ago just about to try Redhat Enterprise beta 2 x86_64 as a `none` free version I am hoping this is more stable.

Sorry didn't make it clear - just wanted to know if your box would run for more than a couple of minutes without the windows gui running.

edit: just read your last mail - hope your running now!!

[jazzyrabbit]

Left my machine up and running over night still there.

Thanks everyone for there comments

[jazzyrabbit]

Had to get rid of Fedora FC3 it was driving me in sane now getting random lock ups and keycode errors on the screen.

I tried Redhat Enterprise 4 beta 2 x86_64 its a lot more stable but still a bit flaky.

Roll on Solaris 10 AMD64 tomorrow (15th November)

[esorin]

I've tried FC3, both i386 and x86_64 on my dual amd opteron with 3ware sata raid card and they were a fiasco! Both were crashing after yum update+reboot. Strange thing is that I have an athlon64 with 3ware raid and fc3 x86_64 and it works like a charm. I will try Centos today, maybe it is more stable.