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sera
Retired Dev
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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Location: CET
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 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| depontius wrote: | | sera wrote: | | I don't see any reasons anymore to use a x86 profile for a x86_64 cpu unless you want to hold on to your x86 knowledge. |
It's also not clear to me that unless you have a clear reason, it is neither necessary nor desirable to move to 64-bit.
[...]
But really the penalty for using 64-bit is small, and the geek ego boost for running it is large. |
x86_64 is not just 64 bit x86. There are many hardware improvements witch do not come from 64 bit. As they are not present in any x86 guess a x86 compiler will not attribute for them.
Looking into new ebuilds I see often KEYWORDS="~amd64" witch tells me a big deal of the developers is running amd64. For the enduser this most likely means better tested packages and better documentation.
Whether it makes sense or not people all buy 64bit chips. The marked for x86 chips seems gone. The transition is inevitable in the long run.
I could probably fill a few pages with arguments of the above quality. It's not just about a geek factor.
I never reinstalled a gentoo and wouldn't do this for such a transition neither. However for a new system I'd say to go with amd64 is more desirable for almost everyone this days. |
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 13047
Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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In fact, why not use all the power of a CPU that we buy. The x86 arch is for Core2 cpu and less.
But you can still go with a Intel CoreI7 I940 on a 32 bits installation too. |
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depontius
Advocate
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 3522
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| sera wrote: | | depontius wrote: | | sera wrote: | | I don't see any reasons anymore to use a x86 profile for a x86_64 cpu unless you want to hold on to your x86 knowledge. |
It's also not clear to me that unless you have a clear reason, it is neither necessary nor desirable to move to 64-bit.
[...]
But really the penalty for using 64-bit is small, and the geek ego boost for running it is large. |
x86_64 is not just 64 bit x86. There are many hardware improvements witch do not come from 64 bit. As they are not present in any x86 guess a x86 compiler will not attribute for them.
Looking into new ebuilds I see often KEYWORDS="~amd64" witch tells me a big deal of the developers is running amd64. For the enduser this most likely means better tested packages and better documentation.
Whether it makes sense or not people all buy 64bit chips. The marked for x86 chips seems gone. The transition is inevitable in the long run.
I could probably fill a few pages with arguments of the above quality. It's not just about a geek factor.
I never reinstalled a gentoo and wouldn't do this for such a transition neither. However for a new system I'd say to go with amd64 is more desirable for almost everyone this days. |
I'll grant the architectural improvements - I had thought about mentioning them in my previous post, but didn't. My most intense application at home is transcoding video from MythTV into xvid or DVD so I can burn it. From what I've heard, moving to 64-bit makes a minor performance improvement, but moving to multi-core is a big win. Too bad my board is socket 939, and I waited just a month or two too long to start looking for an X2 for it.
But the argument about "following the developers" is really the most pursuasive one. Several times around here I've made the "stay with the developers" argument, most recently in favor of libata over ide, and it's equally valid here. I never got around to scavenging the 64-bit partitions on my home machine, so maybe I should - heck, just reinstall into them. I just checked my /boot, and the 64-bit kernel is 2.6.22-gentoo-r8, dated Sept 30, 2007 - not worth trying to update at this point. Now to find some time...
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
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Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Next time that you update your box, you should have a couple of days, because if your installation was last updated on 2007, then you will have a lot of stuff to update. |
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depontius
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Joined: 05 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| d2_racing wrote: | | Next time that you update your box, you should have a couple of days, because if your installation was last updated on 2007, then you will have a lot of stuff to update. |
Like I said, I don't think I'll bother - I'll just reinstall. But I'll have to find the right mirror that has the more up-to-date stage3 snapshots, first. Last time I'd heard about them, but couldn't find one on the mirrors I tried, so I just used the latest release.
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
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depontius
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| Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:41 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the pointer. Now to find the time.
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pdw_hu
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Joined: 02 Jun 2008
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Location: Budapest, Hungary
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| Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:37 am Post subject: |
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I know this is not a very scientific argument, but when I've switched from slackware to gentoo 64bit, the overall machine speed/responsiveness was huge. Everything from the boot process to starting X, to running apps was much much faster.
Yeah I know most of the speed increase came from the compilation advantages, but I doubt anyone would call slackware slow :) And 64bit must've added something there. |
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
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Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:51 am Post subject: |
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| And the best argument is that you may have compiled your box with your current CPU, I mean slackware compile like if you had a intel i386 or intel i486 and with Gentoo you can compile your programs to be optimised for a core2, so it's a big difference. |
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depontius
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| d2_racing wrote: | | And the best argument is that you may have compiled your box with your current CPU, I mean slackware compile like if you had a intel i386 or intel i486 and with Gentoo you can compile your programs to be optimised for a core2, so it's a big difference. |
I'll second the "compiled on your box" adding that this is simply one way to get the most reliable operation. No questioning if that binary lib you picked up from somewhere had the right options enabled. By and large, if it compiles correctly on your machine, it's going to run on your machine.
When RedHat disappointed me by changing their revision strategy after 7.3, I first began looking for a reliable, maintainable distribution. Then I had an Aha! moment when I realized that this was supposed to be FUN! and quickly found my way to Gentoo. I have since found it to be the most reliable, maintainable distribution I have used, though I would NEVER recommend it to anyone. In order to use Gentoo, you have to be ready to thumb your nose at my recommendation, and able to install and maintain it yourself. I recommend Ubuntu, because it keeps me out of the loop.
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
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Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| In fact and the latest version of Ubuntu is pretty fast actually. The boot process is really reduce and it's running fine on most box. |
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Evincar
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007
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Location: Madrid
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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Phoronix begs to differ about 64-bit not bringing improvements.[/url] To be honest, I don't trust Phoronix a lot, but they do seem to have done some serious benchmarks. On Ubuntu, though.
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Yzzyx
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Joined: 30 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:38 am Post subject: |
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I have ran a lot of machines as 32bit and 64bit. The only real improvment I have seen is the ability to get more RAM in the box (and this can be a big deal! working out of RAM instead of from swap does make a difference...  ). I/O and other stuff has been so close that you can't tell if there has been an improvment. When it comes to stability it not so much "is Gentoo 64bit stable?" more like "is this hardware stable?". I have two machines that will not run stable on 64bit but works 100% in 32bit. Both machines will pass any hardware test that you thow at them but will not run a 64bit system. (One is a "Asus M3N / AMD ATHLON X2 7850" (that I have been complaining about in another thread) the other one i a Asus P5K (if i remember correctly) with a Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz) |
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d2_racing
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005
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Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Yzzyx wrote: | | When it comes to stability it not so much "is Gentoo 64bit stable?" more like "is this hardware stable?". I have two machines that will not run stable on 64bit but works 100% in 32bit. Both machines will pass any hardware test that you thow at them but will not run a 64bit system. (One is a "Asus M3N / AMD ATHLON X2 7850" (that I have been complaining about in another thread) the other one i a Asus P5K (if i remember correctly) with a Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz) |
In fact, that's weird, first time that I know that kind of problem. |
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Yzzyx
n00b
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| d2_racing wrote: | | Yzzyx wrote: | | When it comes to stability it not so much "is Gentoo 64bit stable?" more like "is this hardware stable?". I have two machines that will not run stable on 64bit but works 100% in 32bit. Both machines will pass any hardware test that you thow at them but will not run a 64bit system. (One is a "Asus M3N / AMD ATHLON X2 7850" (that I have been complaining about in another thread) the other one i a Asus P5K (if i remember correctly) with a Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz) |
In fact, that's weird, first time that I know that kind of problem. |
Its not that uncommon. I have had two boxes out of about 30 and a friend of mine has one from about ten, so that 3 out of 40. Its not just Linux, my friends wont run 64bit XP either. (And I have tested Open Solaris with about the same results) My guess is that manufacturers don't really test 64bit yet, maybe part of the CPU's och chipsets are marginal. Most new stuff is crap anyway! (but fast crap) I could kill the idiot that designed the SATA/SAS connector. He/they must have been drunk!
Most ppl are use to there machines crashing now and then, they don't know why and don't even wonder. I had a discussion with a friend about the sad state of the VIA machines and there stability. After a few minutes he proclaimed that his machine was perfectly stable, it only crashed once or twice a month. :-/
Maybe my standars are too high... My AMD machine will only crash if I hit it hard enough for it to allocate all its RAM. Othervice it will run for days (with Linux that is, Solaris dies after a few seconds). In fact it ran for three weeks before I found the problem! It will happily run and seem perfectly stable untill it fills up the buffers to 100% of the RAM, then BANG! How many of the "stable" machines out there have the same problem and ppl just don't know it yet? |
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Evincar
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007
Posts: 217
Location: Madrid
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:53 am Post subject: |
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| Yzzyx wrote: | | ... In fact it ran for three weeks before I found the problem! It will happily run and seem perfectly stable untill it fills up the buffers to 100% of the RAM, then BANG! How many of the "stable" machines out there have the same problem and ppl just don't know it yet? |
Eeeehm....Doesn't it simply hit swap and slows down to a crawl?? Sorry for my ignorance, but I really thought that running out of RAM shouldn't make the machine crash. Mind you, I am talking about complete machines crashes, not just an app gone bad. My experience is that there are very few reasons for those, namely:
- Dodgy drivers (Yes, AMD I am looking at you!)
- Shitty PSUs (far too often the case)
- Shitty no-name RAM
- HDD failure (in which case, the crash is the smallest of your problems  ).
That's it. Never thought other hardware or running out of RAM caused a hard crash. Never tried 64-bit though.
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<@Chin^> My sister caught me jacking off the other week and calls me a pervert
<@Chin^> just the other day i walked into my room and caught my sister masturbating
<@Chin^> So she calls me a pervert again?!?
<@Chin^> there is no justice in the world... |
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jonfr
Veteran
Joined: 20 Jul 2003
Posts: 1008
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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I have concluded that Gentoo Linux 64bit is not stable enough for me. The main problem is that after ~5 days, or less in some cases a random failure happens. At one instance the keyboard did go strange and started input the enter command on it's own, today the hard drives started to run at such high load that the keyboard didn't even work and cold reboot was required.
This is not a hardware issue, this appears to be a software issue. I do not expect this to be a kernel issue, but some bugs there might contribute to this issues.
I am going to move back to 32bit environment today. I would like to use 64bit environment, but at the current time is not a option.
My uprecords log shows this issue well. In terms of limited uptime.
| Code: | uprecords
# Uptime | System Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1 5 days, 21:32:08 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Fri Jun 19 15:43:04 2009
2 1 day , 11:16:47 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Thu Jun 18 04:24:38 2009
3 0 days, 07:09:11 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Wed Jun 17 05:30:04 2009
4 0 days, 06:41:04 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Wed Jun 17 14:15:57 2009
5 0 days, 06:16:10 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Tue Jun 16 20:53:33 2009
6 0 days, 06:10:21 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Wed Jun 17 22:13:37 2009
7 0 days, 01:55:38 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Wed Jun 17 03:10:18 2009
8 0 days, 01:37:05 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Sun Jun 14 16:41:55 2009
9 0 days, 00:59:54 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Wed Jun 17 12:39:54 2009
10 0 days, 00:47:21 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Sun Jun 14 18:42:19 2009
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
-> 16 0 days, 00:14:56 | Linux 2.6.29.4 Thu Jun 25 13:16:45 2009
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in 0 days, 00:00:31 | at Thu Jun 25 13:32:10 2009
t10 in 0 days, 00:32:26 | at Thu Jun 25 14:04:05 2009
no1 in 5 days, 21:17:13 | at Wed Jul 1 10:48:52 2009
up 8 days, 20:05:40 | since Sun Jun 14 16:25:53 2009
down 2 days, 01:00:08 | since Sun Jun 14 16:25:53 2009
%up 81.232 | since |
The systems locks out so badly that nothing is recorded in logs. |
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cst
Apprentice
Joined: 24 Feb 2008
Posts: 203
Location: /proc
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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I am running ~amd64 for about 20 months now and it is still the same install and its very stable IMO. I occasionally have some web browser crashes probably thanks to flash , but this is most likely not gentoo`s fault. Few times gentoo didnt want to shut down, but again this is a few times to a thousand normal shutdowns. That is all I can think off when it comes to unstable behavior.
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jonfr
Veteran
Joined: 20 Jul 2003
Posts: 1008
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I am going to give 64bit system a final chance. I am going to test switching about a kernel and see if that makes the system more stable. |
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stmiller
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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As someone else mentioned, doing this:
| Code: | emerge nvidia-drivers
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...worked for me, to answer the thread starter. It even detected and setup dual monitors by then running nvidia-settings. I never had to touch any config files.
64bit Linux is quite mature IMO. The biggest rant is always about adobe flash, but now there's 64bit flash so that is sweet. |
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jonfr
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Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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I did reconfigure the kernel and did compile it all over. I am going to do this an see if how the result is going to be. If that does not work, I am going to switch back to 32bit for the next few years.
I hope it works, because I want to move to 64bit system that is stable. |
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sera
Retired Dev
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
Posts: 1017
Location: CET
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| Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:07 am Post subject: |
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| jonfr wrote: | | I hope it works, because I want to move to 64bit system that is stable. |
The last time I had to reboot an amd64 except to upgrade a kernel was one and a half years ago when I was still using fglrx. |
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Yzzyx
n00b
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Evincar wrote: |
Eeeehm....Doesn't it simply hit swap and slows down to a crawl?? Sorry for my ignorance, but I really thought that running out of RAM shouldn't make the machine crash. Mind you, I am talking about complete machines crashes, not just an app gone bad. My experience is that there are very few reasons for those, namely:
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Thats what its supposed to do... but it doesnt, thats the whole problem.
Its works perfectly in 32bit and I have other machines that work perfectly in 64bit. Its the hardware that is flaky in this machine in 64bit mode.
And it doesn't really run out of memory, it just fills it up with cache/buffer. (and don't get all the way to 100% just 99.9999% .
In 32bit mode the machine is perfectly stable with no swap and beating on it like crazy. Granted, it is slow since it has to write to disk when there are no memory free and trying to start new tasks will not work that well. (Some will wait untill there are memory, some will hang and some will die. But the machine will never crash) |
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Bircoph
Retired Dev
Joined: 27 Jun 2008
Posts: 261
Location: Moscow
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| Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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I'm running gentoo on both amd64 and x86. They are equally stable. Moreover, my core network server is on amd64.
The only minor problem in the past was that some packages were not keyworded for ~amd64. This is easy and obviously to fix (95% of them compiled and work fine on amd64 actually), moreover, almost all of them are keyworded properly after some bugreports ).
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bendy
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Joined: 18 May 2002
Posts: 274
Location: Gloucester, UK
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:44 am Post subject: |
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I'm running ~amd64 and finding it very stable. I was starting to get pissed off with gentoo about 6 months ago as the stable tree seemed to be getting stale, and I was managing a large and growing package.keywords file. I decided to go all ~arch and haven't looked back since. I fell back in love with gentoo and it feels the way it used to when I started using gentoo back in 2002.
I think ~arch is actually generally quite stable in gentoo as the really unstable or experimental stuff is in overlays now. I also think it is better to run all ~arch than have a huge package.keywords file. |
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Gentoo on AMD64
