AussieJohn Posted August 29, 2006 Report Share Posted August 29, 2006 (edited) I am setting up Mandriva 2006 on a friends machine which I have custom built for him (new). It has an AMD Sempteron64 3500. I originally installed Mandriva2006 Official and it set up nicely with no problems with any of the applications. Then I realised that there was a Mandriva2006-64 so I thought I would do the right thing and do a fresh install of 2006-64. I find that quite a number of small applications are not available in this format which is a bit of a pain but the biggest problem is that any update kernels and kernel-sources 12-22 or 12-23 or 12-24 or 12-25 other than the original 12-12 installed in 2006-64 will not properly boot past the Grub boot loader screen. I have checked and double checked the settings in Grub are the same for all five sets of kernels. I am inclined to reinstall the Mandriva2006-Official but thought I should check here first as to A:- whether it is really necessary to use 2006-64 for an AMD-64 and B:- if it is then what may be the problem with the kernels which are all correctly -64s and not the usual ones. What real difference is there to an ordinary user who will be using the computer for routine things and not Games, or Server and such like (he is also a retired person and totally new to computing)( has no knowledge or experience with Windows :D :D :D ) He doesn't collect the machine until late this afternoon so I still have time to reinstall 2006 if needs be. Cheers. John. Edited August 29, 2006 by AussieJohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 I have a 64bit P4 that I dual boot (Debian Etch 32 bit- main distro- and Fedora Core 5 -64 bit) and can not se any appreciable difference. There are many apps that are only 32 bit. My guess is that for ost uses you will not see much of a difference and some things may make 32 bit easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted August 30, 2006 Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 If you go for the 64 bit version, you will experience that e.g. flash will not work on it yet (AFAIK) and some apps that you might need could still be unavailable on a 64-bit distro. IMHO there is no convincing argument for using a 64-bit distro. 32 bit runs equally well on a 64 bit processor, is better tested, better supported and less space-hungry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted August 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2006 Thanks Polemicz and Arctic. Your comments are exactly what I experienced so I did a fresh reinstall off the Mandriva 2006-Official again and it runs like a dream (with all updates of course). The man is delighted with his new computer and having a fantastic time getting learn about how to use it. We have a new LINUX devotee already and he plans to join MUB as soon as his ADSL account goes live in a couple of days. :D Arctic, that Flash problem was what spot on. An important (legal) music download site I use uses it and we were no longer able to get the daily free MP# download. Can again now. Couldn't get Filelight or Mahjongg3D-SolitaireGL either, two name just two apps I can immediately think of. One little thing I have found is that I cannot get the machine to go fully auto OFF when selected in the log off menu.It must be a bios difference with this particular Gigabyte board because I cannot find anything different in the bios settings or the M-2006 settings that I selected as to what I normally setup. It does the closing down routine then stops just before the actual switch off point. Just a touch of the machine power button and it switches off completely. I have the no apic nolapic settings in place and it was the same in all three installs. The man is quite happy with this but I would like a possible answer if anyone has one. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted August 31, 2006 Report Share Posted August 31, 2006 Has ACPI been disabled? Are the options correctly set for power off, suspend, etc, etc in the BIOS? Not sure, could be something to do with these options. All I can think of right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted August 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2006 Hi Ian. Yes I have always disabled ACPI. In fact I always delete anything to do with acpi etc and have never had this kind of problem before and in this case only with the 2006-64 that I tried for the first time.(maybe the last time for quite a while) In fact I set his machine up exactly as mine and it is working perfectly apart from the slight difference of shutdown. I can only put it down to the Gigabyte board ( I am using an ASUS) . Yet it does not occur on two other peoples similar model Gigabyte board machines that I have also set up with Mandriva2006-Official (I built their machines as well) for them. It is not a big deal but it would still be nice to know the answer. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted August 31, 2006 Report Share Posted August 31, 2006 I tend to have acpi on my systems. I remember once in Windows when acpi wasn't installed, it would not shutdown and power off. Although this could just be windows :P Just thought it might be the same for this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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