AMD processors and Linux
 

Hi everyone,

I'm currently planning for an upgrade and looking to select a new processor... for many reasons (alright, it's the cost), I've decided to opt for the AMD processors. Now I just want to check - are there any problems with AMD processors and Linux? I'm asking 'cause I remember seeing somewhere that non-Intel processors can cause 'trouble'. I'm no hardware guru so I'm not aware of what 'trouble' is, which is kinda why I'm asking around here :)

The processors I'm looking at are AMD XP1700-2000+. I'm running RH7.2, if that changes anything...

One more question - when I replace the processor, will Linux b*tch? Will I need to reinstall? Thanks in advance, guys.

Regards,
Korshun.

shouldn't ever come across any problems. linux won't mind in the slightest if you change it either.

oh adn you should use AMD for the quality, not the cost.

The old kernels had a few problems with Thunderbirds, but that problem is fixed now AFAIK. I'm running kernel 2.4.18 fine on both an AMD Athlon 1Ghz and Athlon XP 1600. :)

im running 1.2ghz athlon 200fsb with ddr board. (kt333) chip set.

the only thing thou is i had to upgrade the kernel(which my friend did for me)
i needed to do this because hdparm was slow as fuck so now its working fine!

So, which kernel are you running now?
"uname -r"

I got a 600Mhz Duron on a Gigabyte MB with a VIA chipset and running 2.4.18 kernel. Works great.

I got an Athalon @ 1000Mz ... runs fine better than my P3 @ 550Mz at least :)

Thats because support for the southbridge in this chipset wasn't introduced untill 2.4.19-pre6. The latest is 2.4.19pre10.

I'm running a Amd Thunderbird 1ghz without any problem... My kernel is now 2.4.17 but my old 2.2.19 was very friendly with my cpu too.

I'm running a trimmed down, Athlon optimzed 2.4.18 kernel on my 1.33ghz T-Bird and it works great.

Btw talking about AMD... is there are any progs running in linux to watch the temperature of my Cpu/Motherboard?

Yep, have a look at lm_sensors, you'll need the matching i2c package from that site as well, and you can use gkrellm to display the info.

I've had problems installing both mandrake8.2 and RH7.3 on two AMD systems. one was a 900mhz and the other was a 1.4 T-bird.


Mandrake wont even allow me to pass the first screen (where you can select text, expert, etc.). Well, It passes but the next screen, which probes all your HW(?) locks and at the bottoms says kernel panic no init.

Redhat 7.3 goes through the install Okm but locks up randomly during installation process (when installing all the packages) . I can still ALT+CTL to other screens and mouse functions OK.. it's just the install that stops.

Any ideas?

I,ve got three AMD chips.

A K6-3 400, Duron 750 and a Duron 1200.

They have run fine with all versions of Mandrake since v8.0 ( thats when I discovered it :)) on ASUS and ABIT motherboards.

Yes I do luv AMD.

L8rs

RecoilUK

well WTF. it's gotta be heat then hey? But Windows installed/runs fine on both machines. I just don't get it.

Did you build these boxes yourself or buy them off the shelf?

What other hardware you using mobo, gcard etc

RecoilUK

I'm running dual Athlon MP 1600's on a Asus A7M266-D Mobo, 256mb DDR, Geforce 2 mx, running Gentoo on a home tweaked 2.4.18 kernel. Thing runs like a dream. Just got to get my ram back up where it should be, I had a 512mb stick of crucial go sour on me :mad:

But yeah Athlons and Linux get along just fine. :)

I want one of those :), bet dual Athlons kick ass

RecoilUK

Hey Buddy!

Have you tried installing any other distro out there with em? I am gonna start checkin out Gentoo pretty soon, see what they got under their hood. Oh and you know at the beginning of the mandy install you press F1 to get a 'text' screen? At that point I think you can type 'mem=nopentium' and it's supposed to help with issues with the processor.

I have had similar problems before, just like that. I actually just thought it was the graphics card. So I started installing using vgahi (which they say you should choose vgalo) and haven't really run into the problem since.

I don't know what the mem=nopentium does, maybe a mod or a guru can enlighten us on that one.

Good luck dude

As MasterC says; mem=nopentium did the trick
for me, but only for stability and Nvidia in my case,
i could easily install it though
I ran into another install problem, but that was
freebsd related; only thing that worked then was;
flashing the bios! yes a bit risky, but the only option.
Maybe the not installing mdk/rh thing is related with
your mobo??
AMD runs otherwise just fine with linux :)

I'd like to use AMD too but check out http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules...ticle&sid=2423

If there are no problems with AMD CPUs, how come AMD has asked the Linux community to help resolve AGP and other problems in the next kernels? :confused:

Dutch