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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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Old 12-12-2003, 04:17 AM   #1
gsibble
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Talking 64-Bit Linux System


Well, I wanna build a linux system that's a little more powerful than my laptop. I want it to be a 64 bit server for my samba, ftp, apache, and BT services.

So what should I put in it?? Opteron? Itanium? Athlon 64? You guys tell me and I'll probably build it.

I was thinking about an Opteron based system......but then I need a distro that can run on it. Good ideas?

Thanks guys!
 
Old 12-12-2003, 06:32 AM   #2
hw-tph
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If I was to build a 64bit system right now I think I would go with a proven architecture like the Alpha or UltraSPARC platforms. Linux runs (and boy does it run well!) on both. You can get used Alpha systems for not much money.

If it was a more desktop-like system I think I would go with an Athlon 64 (which is the same as the Opteron, isn't it?) since the motherboards available work well with regular PC peripherals. Also, the Athlon 64 is a *lot* cheaper than Intel's Itanium2 processors.

There are some distributions supporting the AMD64 architecture already, like Debian.

Håkan

Last edited by hw-tph; 12-12-2003 at 06:34 AM.
 
Old 12-12-2003, 04:57 PM   #3
ac1980
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Actually, Athlon64 and Opteron are not the same. Opteron is specifically designed for servers, so (i was told) it better handles heavy loads. It also behaves very well in smp (multi-cpu) systems. It's sensibly more expensive, too!
So you must guess how much load will this machine have to sustain. Imho opteron is not worth for a single-processor, but i speak on blueprints, i never actually used it.

As for distro, all academic and business oriented ones already support it, and since gcc and glib have been ported, soon every distro will. Note that taking full advantage or it is another thread, it might take longer and may even require some hardware change in architectures. Still AMD seems to be much more interested in linux than intel.

Last edited by ac1980; 12-12-2003 at 04:59 PM.
 
Old 12-12-2003, 05:10 PM   #4
Phorem
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You can try the AMD64 Athlon 3200 or go one more step up and get the AMD64-FX51. Personally, i have the Athlon 3200-64 and it is wasn't too expensive yet it's very obvious the amount of power your computer will now have. Like ac1980 said, if it's not going to be a Dual (or more) cpu server, than i would look at the Athlon 64's. It won't empty your bank account if you grab one of these. Be mindful when selecting a motherboard though, as most don't have that much support yet - but it's getting better.

Last edited by Phorem; 12-12-2003 at 07:07 PM.
 
Old 12-12-2003, 05:32 PM   #5
ac1980
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I forgot, maybe it's useless to say, but is say it anyway :
DON'T SAVE ON RAM, it's often by far the most cost-effective way to boost performance when many simultaneous tasks are performed.
My modest p2 400mhz with 192m of ram easily outperforms university p3 800mhz 64mb workstations (both running debian).
Of course you're one order of magnitudo above.

Last edited by ac1980; 12-12-2003 at 05:35 PM.
 
Old 12-12-2003, 09:04 PM   #6
gsibble
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My XP system (for gaming) has 2GB of Corsair PC3500CL2......I never save on RAM
 
Old 12-15-2003, 03:13 AM   #7
jpearl24
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i chose the opteron processor... thats what i run,, it has the same architecture as the fx 51.. so i htink its worth the extra money... the amd 64 3200 has less pins and half the onchip memory...
the only thing i dont like is that the asus board i have has the nforce3 chip on it and the network card isnt supported yet i guess cuz it doesnt work... so im gonna put a difff nic in for awhile.. but i also have a mandrake 9.2 setup on my other comp running a 2.4 P4 and when i open the control panel it takes 2 times as long as my 1.6 opteron to open the same program so im happy with the 64 bit stuff
 
Old 03-27-2004, 06:35 PM   #8
Mofeen
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Quote:
Originally posted by Phorem
Personally, i have the Athlon 3200-64...
Be mindful when selecting a motherboard though, as most don't have that much support yet - but it's getting better.
How satisfied are you with your Asus K8V Deluxe? Would you choose this board again if you were building today, or another?
 
Old 03-27-2004, 06:57 PM   #9
Pwnz3r
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Gentoo supports the 64 bit architecture and can be tailored for any use. I highly recommend Gentoo if you want to stay away from dependency issues and such. Also, the Portage system installs things from the source so everything is optimized for your system.
 
Old 03-29-2004, 09:52 AM   #10
Phorem
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"How satisfied are you with your Asus K8V Deluxe? Would you choose this board again if you were building today, or another?"

Well Mofeen, when i bought it back in Nov 2003, there wasn't too much around in terms of choice. But to answer your question; yes. Yes i would. Other than a bios update to actually get the board to boot with a linux 64 bit distro, i haven't had any problems. As for 64bit OS's, Gentoo is pretty sweet, but the time it takes to build and the "speed" gains aren't really worth it. Maybe a 15-20% increase in speed...Maybe! I have tried them all. Now that Mandrake has put out a 64 bit distro that has the 2.6 kernel - life is a lot easier. Before i had to compile a 2.6 kernel (or a really recent 2.4) in order to use the agp and other bleeding edge hardware so it was a pain in the you know what. Overall, yes i'm happy and the board and chip are pretty sweet. Pricey though :-)
 
Old 04-01-2004, 07:09 AM   #11
heavysanders
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Hi Phorem,

I plan to buy a system similar to yours equipped with two WD 160GB S-ATA discs. Do you have experience with such an configuration?

Regards
 
Old 04-01-2004, 11:45 PM   #12
Phorem
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Not with the S-ATA discs no. I just use a single 30gig maxtor on the IDE. Nothing really special.
Sorry i can't be a little more help :-)
 
Old 04-02-2004, 01:46 PM   #13
ghansri
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I am using a Maxtor 120 Gb sata . And my mother Board Is MSI K8T
Distro is Mandrake 10.0 AMD 64 . Mandrake recognizes both the on board SATA (promise and Via). I had no problem in installing it . i recommend you to go with 120 Gb coz the OS is some times doesnot recognize 160 gb you should be using such huge volume as slave
 
Old 04-03-2004, 06:04 AM   #14
carboncopy
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make sure you build multiprocessor system too
 
Old 09-09-2004, 04:04 PM   #15
wonkytonkgrrl
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If you're interested in Itanium, there's a user community advancing Linux on Itanium called Gelato. Post your questions to the Gelato technical discussion board at [url removed by Moderator] You'll find people who know a lot about Linux on Itanium -- kernel developers and scientific reseachers -- more than willing to help you out.

Last edited by J.W.; 09-09-2004 at 06:02 PM.
 
  


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