AMD Athlon XP
 

I'm trying to figure out which OS to put on two new servers that I'm building and I think I've got it down to Slackware or FreeBSD.. FreeBSD is my main choice due to excellent documentation.

But, my question is how well does FreeBSD run on AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processors? What platform does the Athlon XP's fall under?

Any help on this situation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

this is a rather odd question i think ...
but in any case your 2000+ cpu is going to power any distro just fine ;)

I don't know much about hardware. :) I'm now being forced to learn though since I've out grown my 1 dedicated server and instead of shelling out $300/month to lease 2 servers I'm going ahead and buying 2 new servers and colocating them locally.

The main thing is I am confused with the whole 'platforms' thing on the FreeBSD site. x86 is the most common.. and then you've got the AMD64, alpha, sparc something or other.. All of those with different levels of OS support.. so I was just wondering if the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ is going to run nicely or not.. I guess. ;)

AMD Athlons are all "x86". Unless you get one of the new 64-bit AMD CPUs (which have weird numbering systems, I must say) then you don't have to worry about it.

FreeBSD is an excellent choice for site hosting.

when u compile the kernel though it will not take advantage of 3dnow or 3dnow2 or see1 or 2 instructions, just x86 ones (common across amd and pentium)

With Linux it does... I have a 1600+ and my kernel is compiled for all of this....

fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow

...

i know, the linux kernel compiler will tell u that if u pick the general x86 options it will not take advantage of cpu specific instructions.
there is not that option in bsd

Why would you need multimedia/3D extensions on a server?

Anyway, his question was already answered by chort.

BSD is more stable/reliable than Linux, which is what most people want in a server; Linux is more bleeding edge, which is what most people want in a workstation. The main reason being their different development methodologies.

That's sort of an odd statement to make... OpenBSD reports this so it definitely recognizes the extended instructions:
cpu0: AMD Duron(tm) Processor ("AuthenticAMD" 686-class) 1.11 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE

On some archs it definitely takes advantage of them, such as the built-in encryption engine on the new VIA CPUs, that is supported by OpenBSD and used for encryption off-loading.

So can you confirm that the AMD64 version is working on an Athlon XP 2000?

Does freeBSD 4.9 exist for AMD? and where can I download it? On FTP i only find 5.1 and higher but am hesitating to install it. We're installing a new mailserver and we'd like to use freeBSD. On freeBSD.org I read that it's not recommended to use a product from the CURRENT branch, and would like to try 4.9. Or can I trust the 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.2.1 ?

Kind Regards

Michael VO

"AMD Athlons are all "x86"."

I believe that comment to be true. Either way though, I got all the parts for my servers yesterday. I bought a copy of FreeBSD off eBay since I'm still on dialup and it was easier, but those CDs were junk, so I had to run out to Barnes & Noble and pick up a copy of 'FreeBSD Unleashed' with a copy of FreeBSD 5.0 included.

Everything went very smoothly and still is going smoothly with the Athlon XP 2000+

All XPs are x86 (32bit). Opterons are 64bit.

Ok, thx

What about freeBSD 4.9 AMD64? Does it exist? and where can i find it? Or can I trust the 5.X versions?

For software concerns, unless you can't proceed another way (for many reasons) the best is to get your copies from the official web site or a retailer if you can find one. This is definitively the better choice.

in Linux you can determine if the version is stable or not checking the second minor number , if even then stable

in BSD it is different : but all i know is that 4.9 is the stable version and the new 5.2 is the newest stable version :)

No, 5.3 will be the stable release in the 5.x tree, 5.2 is still unstable IIRC. 4.9 is the only stable release right now, in my understanding.

oh sorry .. i was about to say 5.3 but 5.2 was in my mind :) anyway i mentioned to the newest :

The only versions officially available for AMD64 are 5.1 and 5.2. You can still run the x86 versions (4.9 and up) on AMD64 just fine. This does not go the other way though (i.e Taking AMD64 binaries and trying to run it on Athlon XP 2000). The Athlon XP does not have the extra x86-64 instruction set. Since you have Athlon XP 2000, you have to stick with the i386 versions.