Ronayn

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Hello,

I am looking for a 64 bit distro, but I have a couple of questions:

1) I am confused about the architecture tags. When I go to http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/11/ I see distro for the following archs (i386, ppc, ppc64, x86_64). I am guessing its the ppc64 arch I want? (unsure here, I mean, is x86_64, a 64 bit arch?)

Btw, here is my cpuinfo for the machine I'd like to install on (if that info helps):

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 3000.141
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca lahf_lm
bogomips : 6003.30
clflush size : 64

(There are 4 of these on the server)

2) The machine is secured, so I cant access the net. I'd need a DVD with the distro and repositories -- where can I find that?

TIA!

acid_kewpie

ppc64 is 64 bit PowerPC architecture
x86_64 is 64 bit Intel architecture.

you want x86_64

Ronayn

Thank you Chris -- I have a followup question, if you dont mind?

The reason I am pursuing 64bit Linux is because an application I am working on requires severa; HUGE buffers (the total exceeding 4G). As I understand it, 32bit Linux is limited to 4G (minus OS requirements, and such), but 64bit Linux is not. Can you confirm that x86_64 will allow me to use over 4G? (From what I know about the machine, it has 8G memory installed, though more can be added).

Thanks again.

johnsfine

Complicated question, depending on what you mean. Each task is limited to 4GB virtual including typically 1GB of OS overhead. The whole system can use much more than 4GB and there are complicated (and probably now pointless) dynamic mapping methods to make effective use of more than 4GB even in a 32bit task.

Much simpler question. A 64bit task under a 64bit OS is not limited to 4GB of virtual memory.

Yes.

32 bit Linux is less limited than you apparently think, but that issue is pretty much academic for this thread. You have said enough to make it virtually certain that x86_64 Linux is the right choice for you.