best linux distro for quad core amd
 

hi,
what is the best linux distro for quad core amd processor 9500 phenom 2.2ghz. i have a asus m2a-vm motherboard with 8gb of ram.

im currently running suse 10.3 64bit edition the only problem is that when i click on my computer nothing shows up at all.

thanks

It doesn't matter what Linux distro you run on hardware as most of the hardware support comes from the Linux kernel which is almost same in every distro. Just make sure you have smp support enabled in kernel and your good to go.

I want one too!

You can expect all the major distros to have smp support. Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Suse, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS and about a dozen others.
I would go with Ubuntu. Of course there's nothing wrong with Suse, that you can't figure out yourself... :D

cant see all my ram and my computer icon wont display info
 

hey sorry for not replying sooner but thanks for your response. i have an issue where i have the my computer icon will not diplay any thing when i double click it. all it says is looking up cpu information. i have suse linux 10.3 64bit edition installed. would you happen to know what the problem is. i have done all the updates and still nothing. i tried 32bit edition suse 10.3 and it works ok but i wont see all my memory. i have 8gigs and it only sees 3.3gigs. also how do you enable smp support? thanks

By selecting the appropriate option when configuring the kernel for compilation. As has been said, this will have already been done for you on most major distros. For example:As you can see, my default Ubuntu 7.10 kernel has SMP already enabled.

If your distro's default kernel isn't SMP-enabled, they still should provide you with an optional SMP-enabled kernel which you'd install on your own.

I just noticed that - What on earth do you do with 8gig!
I would recommend against using a 64 bit system yet, unless you need the ram to do big-time 3d rendering or phew... edit hollywood movies... now I'm out of ideas. You might have had a plan there... so if you do, go with a64 bit system. If one distro doesn't work, just go to the next one as long as you don't have invested too much time in configuring it. A fresh install takes you about 30 minutes, and most of that time can be spent drinking coffee, or taking a walk.

Hmmm... maybe you could just load the whole system into ram like the dsl live-cd... I would check that out because that would be awesome.

ok but how do i fix the problem can you give me a step by step tutorial? i really need to see my stuff in my compuer that is the most important thing to me right now.

i need to edit downloaded movies and burn them to dvd. thats why have a quad core amd with 8gigs. but my problem is i cant see anything in my computer. i prefer suse linux do you have and responses on this

What do you mean by my computer?

Do you mean your some sort of a file manager won't start?

In that case open up a console and try to open it from there and it will print out the error message so you have something to help you debug the problem.

It's like the workspace on windows - I think it basically opens nautilus with some informations. To be sure you could right-click the icon, go to the launcher tab, and copy and paste the command into a terminal.

You'll have a hard time finding an SMP howto that is younger than 5 years. I think pretty much every distro has an SMP enabled kernel now.

My response is: I am not the least bit surprised that default system programs are crashing. Last time I tried 64bit SUSE - Kate was broken. That was quite a while back, but I have had a history of breakdowns with this distro. Like I said: Don't try to fix it for too long, chances are another distro will just work.

ok i have my 64 bit os installed. i had to install suse 32 bit and then update to 64 bit but now my problem is that my processor is only clocked at 1100mhz and it should be 2200mhz i have a 9500 quad core phenom. i cant see all my ram either of 8gb.


this is what i have when i click on my computer. the my computer i con is on the desktop (ZYMRGEL).

total memory 3.3gb

free memory 2.8gb +(434mb caches)

swap memory 2gb



i also notices that my cpu jumps form 1100mzh to 2200mhz and my not doing anything.

So you installed the 32-bit Suse and then used Yast to update it to 64-bit?

That seems to me like your begging from trouble. AFAIK you really should install straight to one architecture and stick with it. Have you really replaced all your 32-bit packages with the 64-bit versions as otherwise they won't be working at all.

The lower clock speed most likely means that the Suse is running acpid service which automatically lowers the cpu clocks when they're not used to same energy. This is normal behavior.

About the memory issue, I think it is related to your whole 32bit -> 64-bit update thingy. The 32-bit systems have the 4Gb max RAM limitation which seems to affect your system.

Why your not installing a 64-bit version straight from DVD?

Sorry to be the carrier of bad news, but 32 bit to 64 bit, thats virtually a complete reinstall, reason being, most packages in opensuse 10.3 (as in most distros, except 32 bit only ones) have dependancies based on kernel...Meaning, they are either 32bit or 64 bit kernel dependant unless the package is noarch...

I would be inclined to save a lot of headache and get opensuse 10.3 x86_64 and install that from scratch, quickest and easiest way...
If you are not willing to do that, then its time to do a complete update, ensuring that you have 64bit kernel installed and remove the 32 bit kernel from the system, use the update manager in yast, ensuring you have the repositories...

Once updated then its trial and error to find the problems that are now inbuilt into the system...
Essentually you have a semi broken system, that you need to fix...

PS: A lot of the configuration information is also wrong for 64bit if initually 32 bit...

Debian's AMD64 port has been very easy
 

OMG, give up! Unless you're a developer for Suse working on the 64-bit port, you're working way too hard on that! Really, I think you will be surprised how easy Debian is to get running in 64-bit flavor. It's no different than installing for a 32-bit processor. I know I'm just echoing what's already been said, but I can't help it, try another distro.