sud_crow Posted September 23, 2003 Report Share Posted September 23, 2003 Hi, As you know, Athlon64 was launched today. Does anyone know about linux and this processor support? About Athlon: http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1884 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted September 24, 2003 Report Share Posted September 24, 2003 There is an article in OSNEWS about an experience of someone trying an opteron (basically a souped up A64 for workstation rather than desktop) in linux. Here is the link http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4618 If you look at a mandrake mirror, it should have the A64 version of rpms, so at least the linux support is there.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sud_crow Posted September 24, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 24, 2003 Yes i been looking around and there seems to be some what of support, and its pretty advanced also... even the 2.4.21 supports 64bits. I found some "benchs" with linux, a beta version of a Red Hat for 64bit in www.anandtech.com in the article "Judgement Day" Pretty cool stuff, till now P4 was kicking Athlon ass in multimedia content (encoding divx, mp3 and such) but with Linux and Athlon64 the thing looks pretty well for AMD, they need almost 50% LESS time to compile an MP3 with Lame. Cant wait to get one of those things... maybe in the next ten years i will get the money... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 Cant wait to get one of those things... maybe in the next ten years i will get the money... i would give it around 1 to 2 years before the price drops to *normal* level. besides, i dont think there is much software available that is compiled and tested with the 64-bit architecture. waiting is good... unless you have the cash now. :) ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 Mandrake has released 9.2 Beta1 for Athlon 64 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sud_crow Posted September 25, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 true true, betas are everywhere! by the way i dont mind compiling and testing my self... i do it with a P3 733, wont have much problem in doing it with a 2.2ghz Athlon64! jejeje ;) Anyway, yes it seems there are some issues with different programs that dont support the arch. but i think it wont take long until they do... its actually something big. And i would like to see much more confidence from the market so the things would go faster. I know it deserves it. Also, i cant tell about the price drops, as in my country those usually do not occur, at least not at the same time as in US. for ex. an XP 2800 its 280U$S (and that its x3 in my local currency) I was thinking this would be good place to discuss what everyone expects from it (if you actually expect something) and Linux. I really think this is a greate oportunity for Linux to grow, while the "giant" is sleeping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 yup, i know that there are already linux support for the 64-bit architecture but most application code has not been tested yet on that platform. imho, the 64-bit platform is not yet mature. for the rest of us (especially those lacking in the financial matters), waiting is a prudent move. ;) ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 I've read several reviews of Operton based rack servers and so far all of them shipped with SuSE as its supposedly the best server software for them out at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 I've read several reviews of Operton based rack servers and so far all of them shipped with SuSE as its supposedly the best server software for them out at the moment. yay for linux! but as you have said, its supposed to be the best server software for it. while most of us non-geeks (ok, just humor me for a bit) want it for a souped-up desktop system. :) ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 25, 2003 Report Share Posted September 25, 2003 It isn't quite as simple as comiling for a 64bit architecture. The programs need to be written to fork and multitask using the 64bit code along the lines of writing parallel software. Each iteration of this gets harder at a machine level and hence higher and higher level languages need to be used to overcome the failings of the human brain. Some hings of course are simplified For example for IEEE 64bit fp precision in 32 bit takes two calculations and dependencies on the endianess of the bits which is then either locked to the processor (according to the endianess of the processor) or needs to be translated. In many ways 32 bit architectures are yet to be fully exploited. It is only recently that the 2GB file limit has been broken, despite that beig a 16bit lmit. The theoretical 4TB addressable range is also not exploited. Even standard kernels for 32 bit only address 868MB and can be expanded to 4GB or 16GB. The 4TB addressible range still lacks this. One area it is most noticable is backup software. You can't backup and index more than 4TB on a 32 bit platform. (well you can but it takes some trickery). The 64 bit addressible range should solve this for linux BUT there are still many areas locked in the 16bit paradigm. We also have legacy equipment, luckily 16bit ISA is becoming a thing of the past and the old 8bit 12Mhz has disappeared but serial and parallel ports are still ubitiquos. Even buying a 64bit PCI MOBO or finding peripherals to run in it are challenging .... What this means is you can't expect the full power of 64bit processors to be accessible, at least not for a while!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sud_crow Posted September 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2003 That means i will have to resign to my beloved ISA Modem?? damn... There is plenty of things to do with 32bit, and i dont think that they will be left apart, thats not AMDs intention, but Intels i think. They made this hybrid processor so the transition would be easyer and faster... also i think it has plenty to do with AMD getting some servers market, as that seems to be a sweet area. Anyway i think its a greate thing becouse it will lower the prices of the other processors and make ppl begin work and learn about 64bit, that after all, is the future (at least for now, weird eh?). I read that the SuSE and ...mm.... forgot the other one, but think was MDK, had server versions of Linux for the Athlon64 and the cost was around U$D600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 26, 2003 Report Share Posted September 26, 2003 Once when i was obsessed with these things I took a scalpel to a MOBO and flashed the bios to remove the ISA BUS.... Its interesting future wise .... but it is a bit like how many apps REALLY support SMP. Running is one thing but doubling (or even nearly) performance is another. I actually use some software at work which runs only 64bit.... Its very ironic that the 64bit math is still done in 32 bit :D Actually two versions exist for the software and they just recompiled the 64 bit version.... Its difficult to say what improvements if any there are in speed ?? The biggest differences are between 64bit IRIX and anything else. The SGI always does better graphics ... the fixed point math though is lousy.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted September 26, 2003 Report Share Posted September 26, 2003 I don't see the lack of software compiled for 64bit as a big problem, the Athlon64 is designed to run 32bit software natively. You could run the current version of MDK on it and it would act just like a faster XP chip. But if you have a 64bit OS then you should get a major performance increase even if you still use apps compiled for 32bit. Personnally I think the next machine I build will be a 64bit, but I'll wait until the prices fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sud_crow Posted September 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2003 ut if you have a 64bit OS then you should get a major performance increase even if you still use apps compiled for 32bit. Actually no. Becouse you have a translation delay and so, you lose the improvement the 64bit processing has. Finally it runs about the same speed, may be a little faster/slower depending on the app and how it was built. About SGI graphics, got me thinking, Apple... then looked a bit, there seems that AMD its not the only one with 64bit, the new (for a couple of months now) G5 has a Motorola 64bit processor... interesting... thats another thing i would like to have... a gooooood Mac... if a Laptop better... wont somebody lend me ..... lets say, 2000 bucks? :mrgreen: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 27, 2003 Report Share Posted September 27, 2003 I think the prob getting true 64 bit apps will be people willing to rewrite them not just recompile. The 32/64 bit mix of the new AMD will not help this but ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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