AMD64 Question
 

I recently installed Slack12 on my desktop and now prefer it to Kubuntu which I had there before. I also have Kubuntu installed on my laptop which has an AMD Turion64. Can I install slack on there? I saw that there was an unofficial 64 bit version, but I thought I also saw that it was pretty buggy/unstable. I have been unable to find a direct answer searching the forum/net, and I am hoping that it is feasable.

Thanks in advance,
Eric

Yes you can install it on there. It runs fine with a 64 bit processor.

Hi em21701, Yes, Slack should run fine there. IMHO unless you have 4gb or more of ram you shouldn't need a 64bit os. If you are running that much ram you might want to try Slamd64.
Good luck. ;-)

Earlier versions had trouble, yes. I wouldn't class Slamd64 12.0 as buggy or unstable though.

You can try Bluewhite64 which is another unofficial port. I'm using it already and works great.

unofficial does not equal buggy

Thank you all. I didn't assume that unofficial = buggy, that was just the result of googling "Slackware amd 64". There were quite a few posts mentioning trouble with slamd64, though it seems based on reactions here that it was an older version. I already have the DVD for Slack12 so I'll probably go with that, although I'll certainly take a look at the 2 alternatives posted here.

Thanks again,
Eric

I installed official Slackware 12.0 on my AMD64 machine just to avoid complications (such as the Flash thing). I realize that most of these are somewhat solved, but Slackware runs fast enough and a 64-bit architecture running with both 64- and 32-bit libraries isn't necessarily faster than a 32-bit OS (although it may be). Or so I've been told.

With nspluginwrapper (included in Slamd64), Flash isn't a problem.

On x86-64, for CPU intensive operations, yes, there is a noticeable difference with having native 64 bit applications and libraries (other architectures are a bit different).

For light/ minor usage, you may not notice the difference.

You have several options:

1) Plain old slackware will run fine. Unless you have some specific need for 64 bit support (such as 4GB or more RAM, or some 64 bit software that you want to run) this option is probably all you need.

2) Run Slamd64 - this is a 64 bit slackware port. I'm running it in a couple places and its fine. If you also need to run 32 bit software, it has 32 bit support via multilib.

3) Run Bluewhite64 - this is pure 64 bit slackware port, ie there's no 32 bit support. So if you need to run 32 bit only software, this isn't the option for you.

4) Build you own 64 bit slackware port :) This is my personal favourite, though in most cases its overkill :)

It has :). The latest stable version 12.0 supports the 32 bit CLI and GUI applications ;).

u sure? Is that a new thing? Even the title on their webpage says "Pure 64-bit Linux...." http://www.bluewhite64.com/news.php

100% sure :)

Details can be found here: http://data.bluewhite64.com/bluewhit...-EMULATION.TXT

By default the 12.0 version it comes in pure 64-bit, and that's why the title say that :)

Slamd64 will allow you to install and use 32 bit Slackware packages directly, since it actually sticks to the AMD64 ABI and uses lib64 for 64 bit packages and leaves lib alone for 32 bit packages, rather than trying to bolt on lib32 further down the line (which breaks compatibility with x86 Slackware packages, since you'll have to compile your own 32 bit software to make it use lib32).

Great with the libs, but what with the binaries? They will overwrite the 64-bit ones and the result will be a mixed system. Imagine when you try to upgrade a 64-bit package... In my opinion it is a little bit confused :).