[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Saturday 29 Oct 2005 09:34, Robin Cornelius wrote: > Hi guys, > > How can i take advantage of an athlon 64 processor. > > >From what i can make out the Athlon 64 is a extended i386 instruction > > set so i presume there are a whole buch of 64 bit instructions avaiable. > So if i compile my kernel with the athlon 64 processor selected the > kernel can take advantage of the 64 bit instructions. Thats well and > good but is there much in the kernel that will benifit from 64 bit? > there are no floating point operations in kernel space, may be some data > transferers can be more efficient and in reduced clock cycles? > > Its the apps and especialy number crunching/data processing that should > benifit the most. I can't see any debain athlon64 sources so i assume i > am stuck with i386 unless I want to compile everything (gentoo?) and i > quite like debian and how things run at the moment anyway. > > In general terms the processor and MB change has made my linux system > much faster even without 64 bit instructions. Linux still booted after > the mb/processor change and I have a couple of small issues to do with > hotplug/udev but everyhing is good now. Windows on the other hand went > ape, it blue screened with in a second of attempting to boot, i had to > run a recovery cd on XP to get it working again and now it seems to run > even slower than before! > > Robin There are several live 64 bit CDs - Kanotix64 for example - which allow you to try out the 64 bit systems. My own experiments with 64 bit distros have been very short lived. I try them out - see no real difference - and go back to my own distro. Like any other distro, it depends what you want I suppose. If you have a generic i386 type distro, then any optimised distro will seem quick by comparison - regardless of 32 or 64 bit architecture. I use Yoper ( which is 32 bit, i686 only, with pre-linking and other go faster goodies) on my machine, and also a i686 optimised Gentoo built with similar go faster goodies. All the 64 bit systems I have tried - installed, rather than from a live CD - have been no better than these two. And - more importantly from my point of view - the issues with libraries have caused problems for me as a gamer. I believe that those who do a lot with graphics and multimedia - cameras, ripping, DV etc - see a benefit, but I don't do enough of that sort of thing to notice. Like you say Robin, just the fact that you have a powerful processor seems to be the biggest benefit I have seen. My own Athlon 64 and 1gb of ram make a huge difference to my work - mostly packaging stuff as rpms etc. The "64bit-ness" is not something I have bothered with for a while. I still have Slamd64 ( a Slack based distro) on here on another partition, but can't remember when I last booted it. Just my own view of course - others with needs which 64 bit really excels at may have a different view. I still think a good optimised 32 bit distro will compete with 64 bit as it stands today. Mark -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html