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I've run both SuSE 9.1 Pro and SuSE 9.2 Pro on an AMD64 server and
workstation. I found 9.1 sufficient for the server, but 9.2 seemed a lot
more polished on the workstation. Still, you'll want to do some manual
customization. For example, the SuSE 9.2 DVD includes both 32-bit and
64-bit versions of most packages, and defaults to always installing 64-bit
versions (plus strategic 32-bit libraries). I found it much more useful
to install 32-bit Firefox and Thunderbird, in order to support plugins
like Acrobat Reader, Realplayer, Java (unless you manually install a
64-bit version), Enigmail, and so on. Likewise, I used 32-bit Subversion
because I wanted the shared libraries to work in IDEA, which runs only on
a 32-bit JVM. (Yes, it *has* been tough to restrict my e-mail and web
browsing to 4 GB of RAM, but somehow I've managed. :)
There seems to be some debate over the speed of 32-bit vs 64-bit
code. On the up side, aside from more available RAM, there are a lot more
registers available in 64-bit mode, which keeps more data in the CPU. On
the down side, all pointers take 64 bits instead of 32 bits, which means
less program fits into the CPU cache, and programs tend to consume more
RAM overall.
Still, my qualitative experience has been that the AMD64 machines
are darn fast. :) I don't have a fastest-to-fastest comparison, but the
"old" 2.2 GHz AMD chip compared favorably to a 3.2 GHz P4.
BTW, MicroCenter (on the main line) has 20% off CPUs (for this
month, I think), which means they pretty much beat online prices for most
models. The same disount goes for motherboards and other "system
upgrades" -- but sadly, not RAM. As of a couple weeks ago, they didn't
have any of the new AMD64+PCI Express boards in stock, but it might be
worth another check.
Aaron
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Michael Lazin wrote:
> My linux box died a little while ago, and I am thinking about building
> an Athlon 64 machine to be my new linux box. Does anyone in the group
> have experience with 64 bit linux? What kind of 64 bit software is
> available? I am leaning towards suse as a distro. Any distro
> recommendations for 64 bit? I am building this machine because I like
> to play around with hardware and I like to use Linux. I am currently
> running my web and mail servers on (gasp) mac os x. Maybe I will
> switch my servers over to this machine after I build it.
>
> Michael
> ___________________________________________________________________________
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> General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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