howdy, i just got an athlon 64 3500+ and i cant seem to get any 64 bit operating systems to get on it. i've tried debian, but the first cd i used was bogus, and that was after i tried to use the business cd and those ftp sites to download the base system and such are pretty bogus, and i've also tried suse 10.1 with a dvd, and when i put that in the machine, all the packages couldnt be found, so pretty useless. so is there anyone out there that has advice on how to get any linux os on my machine? is it even real to have a 64 bit os? or just a myth?

I run Fedora Core 5 64 bit on and AMD 3200+ with no problems at all. Have a look at

www.fedora.redhat.com

just my luck, they are doing site maintenance at the exact moment

okey, i think i'm figuring it out. i downloaded the debian-netinstallion disk. and (correct me if i'm wrong) that seems to have the base install on the disc. and my network card seems to work with dhcp one time, but not the next. so i needed to get through the base install and just set the network up manually, (which didnt work with the internet connection) and then set the network interface for dhcp right when its saying "thanks for choosing debian" or something the first time you boot when you install debian, by alt-f2 into a different console, and then it would work for the rest of the install, like for the desktop envirnment, which i'm doin at this moment that seems to be working.............my network card that seems faulty or something is an SiS900 or something, its built into my motherboard.

Try the Sarge installer here it has a 2.6.16 kernel that hopefully has better support for your hardware BTW how about some details on the hardware in the machine if this does not work or even if you ask another question sometime it is always nice to include that.

I make no pretense at being as knowledgeable as HappyTux, but my advice is that if you have the Etch installer working, stay with it. I don't know if the (so called) Sarge AMD64 uses Xfree86 or not, but you'll be better off with Xorg in the long run. Etch also has the 2.6.16 kernel, but I would recommend getting the 2.6.17-k8 from Sid as soon as possible. That's the kernel that will be included when Etch becomes stable, supposedly in a few months.

I wonder if your SuSE dvd disk was faulty. I downloaded the dvd disk OpenSuSE 10.1 and installed it on my HP ZV5000 laptop.

Fedora site is back up

is there a debian that isn't a pure 64 bit version? or whats deal with that?

If you get it from Debian, it's pure. I recommend Etch. It's available here. The beta AMD64 is broken, but you can get the daily run. Since they're offering it, I assume it's good. No guarantees.

If you can't get any of those to run, there's always Arch64 too, I never had luck with it on my lappy, but I really didn't try too hard. Couldn't get any 64bit monster working, actually. I blame ATI (why? because it's easy.. )

http://arch64.org/

Arch64 is basically a one man show so don't expect it to be super awesome unless Andy gets a few more people on board with the time to help. There are 64bit distros all over but I'm sticking with 32bit for the moment. Everything just works.

Agree with the above, do you really need 64 bit or you want it cause you got a new shiny toy?

Since arch has been mentioned, the 32 bit is a great distro :P

Agree too.

I tried 64 bit a couple of times over the last year, it never seemed to work. Strange crashes, never got flash to work (chroot my ass). And absolutely no noticeable performence boost.

As soon as it works, I'll use it too. But I recommend waiting.
On the other hand - the more people use it, the sooner it will be good.

well will the 32 bit stuff run just as fast as the 64 bit on linux?

and i did get debian workin just fine