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Vanuatoo
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Joined: 12 Jun 2003
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 Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject: 32 bit system on AMD64 |
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Hello
I'm going to install 32 bit gentoo on my athlon 64.(Don't ask me why? Because most of the functionality I'm going to use will run in 32bit mode anyway. Firefox, Thunderbird, Java, Mplayer).
How should I treat my system in this case? Is it x86, i586 or i686? |
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erik258
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Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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You want i686. i586 == pentium class.
| Quote: | | .(Don't ask me why? Because most of the functionality I'm going to use will run in 32bit mode anyway. Firefox, Thunderbird, Java, Mplayer). |
So why not force all the other programs to only use half the registers, too, huh? Well, there is some stuff that will only run 32 bit. I can't say it's a bad idea if you're into desktop stuff. I, for one, used to have an amd64 i686, with 64bit kernel, that ran real nice, but I just didn't feel right about it.
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Sadako
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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As an i686, with march=athlon-xp.
Edit: Although this actually recommends march=k8, even for 32 bit.
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depontius
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject: Re: 32 bit system on AMD64 |
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| Vanuatoo wrote: | Hello
I'm going to install 32 bit gentoo on my athlon 64.(Don't ask me why? Because most of the functionality I'm going to use will run in 32bit mode anyway. Firefox, Thunderbird, Java, Mplayer).
How should I treat my system in this case? Is it x86, i586 or i686? |
i686
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Vanuatoo
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Joined: 12 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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| erik258 wrote: | You want i686. i586 == pentium class.
So why not force all the other programs to only use half the registers, too, huh? Well, there is some stuff that will only run 32 bit. I can't say it's a bad idea if you're into desktop stuff. I, for one, used to have an amd64 i686, with 64bit kernel, that ran real nice, but I just didn't feel right about it. |
Actually I already had amd64 installation but everything was slow and hoggy.
My daily programs are, NetBeans, Oracle SQL Developer, Tomcat, Firefox, Thunderbird, Mplayer, OpenOffice.
I ran java in 32 compat mode, had Firefox-bin (for flash) and OpenOffice-bin packages, mplayer too.
So the system was a fake 64 bit. Now I'm running OpenSolaris that by default boots 64 bit kernel (I don't think I'll need more than 4gb ram),
and all the userland loads in 32 bit by default. 64 bit programs also take more memory and my guess is that the world is not optimized to run
in 64 bit and don't see any advantage right now.
So I'm going to use i686.
Install CD will be: install-x86-minimal-2006.1.iso
Stage3 will be: stage3-i686-2006.1.tar.bz2
Any specific precautions when configuring kernel?
I should specify athlon-xp as CPU type or amd64? |
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Headrush
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Joined: 06 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Vanuatoo wrote: | | Actually I already had amd64 installation but everything was slow and hoggy. |
I hope this isn't the main reason you chose to try 32 bit. Sounds more like a configuration problem than a 64 bit problem. (Just as likely in 32 bit also then?  ) |
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Sadako
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Vanuatoo wrote: | | I should specify athlon-xp as CPU type or amd64? |
I always used march=athlon-xp with my 32-bit chroot, as that's what seemed to be recommeded on the forums at the time,
but march=k8 actually makes more sense to me, so I'd go with what the wiki advises.
I know I'm not oing to change your mind, but 64-bit mplayer has quite recently improved a lot, and can now play wmv version 3 and realvideo files (with the amd64codecs package),
openoffice now compiles and runs natively on 64-bit systems, and 2.1 is supposed to be a major improvement, as is sun's 1.6 jdk and jre, which is available on 64 bit aswell.
Curious as to why everything was slow, but what makes you think a native 32-bit environment will be any different?
What cflags were you using?
Also what desktop environment were you using, and how much ram do you have?
Edit;
| Headrush wrote: | | Vanuatoo wrote: | | Actually I already had amd64 installation but everything was slow and hoggy. |
I hope this isn't the main reason you chose to try 32 bit. Sounds more like a configuration problem than a 64 bit problem. (Just as likely in 32 bit also then? ) |
++
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Vanuatoo
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Hopeless wrote: | | Vanuatoo wrote: | | I should specify athlon-xp as CPU type or amd64? |
I always used march=athlon-xp with my 32-bit chroot, as that's what seemed to be recommeded on the forums at the time,
but march=k8 actually makes more sense to me, so I'd go with what the wiki advises.
I know I'm not oing to change your mind, but 64-bit mplayer has quite recently improved a lot, and can now play wmv version 3 and realvideo files (with the amd64codecs package),
openoffice now compiles and runs natively on 64-bit systems, and 2.1 is supposed to be a major improvement, as is sun's 1.6 jdk and jre, which is available on 64 bit aswell.
Curious as to why everything was slow, but what makes you think a native 32-bit environment will be any different?
What cflags were you using?
Also what desktop environment were you using, and how much ram do you have?
Edit;
| Headrush wrote: | | Vanuatoo wrote: | | Actually I already had amd64 installation but everything was slow and hoggy. |
I hope this isn't the main reason you chose to try 32 bit. Sounds more like a configuration problem than a 64 bit problem. (Just as likely in 32 bit also then? ) |
++ |
That was 2 years ago. I've 1GB RAM and AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 939 130nm CPU.
I will list the main headaches that forced me think bad about 64 bit gentoo.
1. I used jdk 1.5 64bit in the first place.
In my benchmarks it was 2-3 times slower than the 32bit one running in compat mode.
64bit jdk was using 1-1.5 more RAM than 32bit one running in compat mode.
Most of my apps were running using Java so RAM was filling up quickly and I think you agree that 1GB was not little by that time.
2. Firefox. I often needed to preview some flash sites and 64 bit firefox did not have the plugin. So I downloaded firefox-bin that did not
honor my gtk theme settings and I had two diferrent browsers for one job: browsing internet.
3. Mplayer. The same problem but not so disturbing
4. OpenOffice. I switched to Abiword/Gnumeric. But still needed PowerPoint presentations viewer. Actually that was last drop in the cup and I switched.
Eventually I was using 90% of my apps in 32bit mode living with little annoyances and having gentoo 64 bit only for kernel and gnome was kind of unacceptable.
When I asked the question about java, knowledgeble people answered that there is no need to run 64 bit jdk when working under 4GB ram.
I'm not lazy to give a chance to another 64 bit installation.
BTW is 64bit flash 9.0 plugin available for 64 bit firefox? |
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Sadako
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Vanuatoo wrote: | | BTW is 64bit flash 9.0 plugin available for 64 bit firefox? |
Not yet, however many people have had luck using nspluginwrapper to use 32-bit flash with 64-bit firefox.
Haven't tried it yet myself, but you should read up on it on the forums.
I'm using similar hardware, with 1 gig ram also, and haven't experienced the problems you have.
Yeah, java is a memory hog, but I don't find it any better on my 32-bit machines.
Have you ever considered koffice as an alternative to openoffice?
Actually, konqueror has been able to use 32-bit flash for ages, so that may be worth a look too.
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Vanuatoo
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Hopeless wrote: |
Have you ever considered koffice as an alternative to openoffice?
Actually, konqueror has been able to use 32-bit flash for ages, so that may be worth a look too. |
Actually I'm pro GTK user and always liked to use GTK, Gnome interfaces. I also don't like mixing kde apps
with my GTK ones. Nothing against KDE, just not in my mood.  |
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Sadako
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Vanuatoo wrote: | Actually I'm pro GTK user and always liked to use GTK, Gnome interfaces. I also don't like mixing kde apps
with my GTK ones. Nothing against KDE, just not in my mood. |
Same here, while I dislike both kde and gnome, nearly every graphical app I use is gtk+ based
(but if it came down to it, I'd prefer kde as a fully integrated desktop environment over gnome  ).
Thought it was worth a mention all the same.
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erik258
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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arch=athlon-xp -msse2 -msse3 is what i used, but my opteron suppors sse3 too. (pni). However, i think if i were to do it again (unlikely ; ) ) I would use march=k8 instead. It still runs 32 bit natively.
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baigsabeeh
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Joined: 28 Sep 2005
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Location: North Brunswick, NJ
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| Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 12:54 am Post subject: |
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| Hopeless wrote: | | Vanuatoo wrote: | | I should specify athlon-xp as CPU type or amd64? |
I always used march=athlon-xp with my 32-bit chroot, as that's what seemed to be recommeded on the forums at the time,
but march=k8 actually makes more sense to me, so I'd go with what the wiki advises.
I know I'm not oing to change your mind, but 64-bit mplayer has quite recently improved a lot, and can now play wmv version 3 and realvideo files (with the amd64codecs package),
openoffice now compiles and runs natively on 64-bit systems, and 2.1 is supposed to be a major improvement, as is sun's 1.6 jdk and jre, which is available on 64 bit aswell.
Curious as to why everything was slow, but what makes you think a native 32-bit environment will be any different?
What cflags were you using?
Also what desktop environment were you using, and how much ram do you have?
Edit;
| Headrush wrote: | | Vanuatoo wrote: | | Actually I already had amd64 installation but everything was slow and hoggy. |
I hope this isn't the main reason you chose to try 32 bit. Sounds more like a configuration problem than a 64 bit problem. (Just as likely in 32 bit also then? ) |
++ |
Hopeless, since you mention that Mplyaer can now play WMV 3 files and some Realplayer files, what other codecs are we missing for the MPlayer 64-Bit?
As for nsplugin, can I run a 32-Bit Mplayerplug-in using it on a 64-Bit Firefox?
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wyv3rn
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| Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 1:05 am Post subject: |
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I'm also using an Athlon64 in 32bit. I upgraded this machine from a Pentium 3 to an Athlon64 and I didn't want to reload. Besides, after using a P3 for so long, the Athlon64 feels plenty fast enough.
CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -msse3 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-ident -pipe"
Of course you do not want to use -msse3 if your particular Athlon64 does not support SSE3, also known as PNI.
grep pni /proc/cpuinfo
Otherwise, those flags are very safe and should not break anything. I also select AMD64/K8/Opteron/etc. in the kernel config (guess how I know that will be your next question). |
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baigsabeeh
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| Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 1:30 am Post subject: |
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Ok, I can confirm that nspluginwrapper works with Flash 9, Adobe, and Real although there is no need for using it with Real as the 64-Bit MPlayerplugin does a very nice job of that and alot of other stuff it couldn't do before. Anyway, time to boot Firefox-Bin off of here because I don't need it anymore! I love Linux! 
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Gentoo on AMD64
