I have a 64 bit and found that mandriva (even mandrake) clearly informs you that there is a 84 bit available.
I don't see it for Red Hat. Am I missing something or can't I use Red Hat?

You can run regular 32-bit distros on AMD64 machines as well.

No kidding? That's nice to know. I found out that Mandrake 10.1 wouldn't install on my system (when my chip was a 32 bit)
I wasn't sure if 64 bit could run on 32. It should. I recall my chip saying 32/64.
Thank you. I just had to ask, didn't want to download it, and then find out it wouldn't install.

P.S. There's only a CD version, not DVD?

red hat has supported several 64 bit architectures for quite some time. versions 3 and 4 have support for 64bit amd64/intel em64t (both x86_64), 64bit intel itanium, and 64bit ibm power.

but, as mentioned, you CAN use a 32bit os if you so desire.

oh, and i'm not aware of red hat making installation dvds available.

thanks. I was thinknig of branching out in other linux distros. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's a crazy curiosity to learn more about linux. I have very little knowledge in linux, but would like to expand, see what else is out there.
I tried Suse 10.0, but had a lot of issues, and at the time, I wasn't in the mood of learning too much, being I just got Mandriva (upgrade from my old mandrake 10.1), so I didn't stick with suse too long.
Maybe one day, try suse and/or red hat, see what it has to offer.

Fedora Core 5 also comes with a X86_64 version available. See the Fedora website for more.

--Ian

Basically, there are three options:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux: if you purchase a WS/ES/AS subscription from Red Hat, you can download CD ISO's. This will also give you access to new versions, during your subscription time.

CentOS: CentOS is based on the RHEL sources. The primary change is that the Red Hat Logo's are removed, and the CentOS project has also added the YUM package manager. Of course, you also won't get support from Red Hat if you use CentOS. CentOS is freely available.

Fedora: This is a distribution that is developed by the Fedora community and Red Hat. It is less stable than RHEL, and has shorter release cycles. Of course, it can make a great system if you like to ride the edge a bit. Fedora is freely available, and does not come with support.

All three distributions are available for x86_64. I'd advise to use x86_64 only when you use software that gain alot from using this architecture. The downside (especially on desktops) is that compatibility i386 libraries are loaded when you use an i386 application. On desktop systems you may end up having the same set of libraries loaded twice, taking more memory. So, on most systems i386/x86 will fit the bill, even on machines that can do x86_64. Of course, this argument will become void when more x86_64 versions of closed source applications (like Flash Player or Skype) will become available.

Thanks. Ill take a look at them sometime soon.

Something just dawned on me. When I got a 64 bit processor, I was no longer able to load up Mandrake 9.1 which is 32 bit.
So that's why I was a bit concerned about Red Hat and if it will work under 64 bit.

This should only happen with other 64-bit platforms, like IA64 (Itanium). x86_64 /EM64T CPUs should run 32-bit x86 distributions just fine. Are you sure that it wasn't just a driver issue (like missing drivers for a SATA controller)?

Is there a Red Hat that works for x86_64?

Yes actually there is
Red Hat Linux Enterprise 4.0---2.6.9_x86_64-EL