The following article summarizes my experience with AMD64 and Fedora Core x86-64 in desktop systems. In a few years all new computers will be 64 bit. Microsoft and Intel are positive about the 64 bit direction, and Linux seems to be ahead of Wintel for now.
Note: The author is not a native english speaker, please excuse any awkward syntax.
AMD64
The AMD64 is a good CPU. People use them for compilation and cryptography. Their main advantage is not the fact that they can address more memory (as many authors claim). Actually some desktop AMD 64 motherboards use up to 2/3GB of memory. The advantages are:
| Feature | Benefit |
| More CPU registers | performance |
| Built in memory controller | performance |
| L2 cache optimizations | performance |
| Cool and Quiet | lower voltage and lower noise |
| Stack execution protection | security |
My personal hardware configuration is as follows:
- AMD 64 3200+ 2.2 GHz, 512 L2 cache, Newcastle,socket 754, boxed fan
- Asus K8N E nForce3 motherboard
- 80GB SATA Seagate Barracuda, 8 MB cache
- NVIDIA GeForce 2 64 MB/GeCube ATI Radeon 9550GU-C3 128MB
- 512 Kingston RAM
64 bit systems generally require more memory, but I think 512 RAM had been enough for me.
Fedora x86_64:
Fedora was one of the first Linux distributions that made an AMD64 version. Assume everywhere you see Fedora that I mean Fedora 3 X86_64. Fedora seems stable, keeping in mind the new AMD 64 achitecture. I had no problems concerning reliability – no sudden crashes. I think that the binaries are well optimized as there are no such differences as i386, i586, i686. Also exploits for 32 bit Linux won’t on work on 64 bit Linux.
Useful Fedora links:
Cool and Quiet:
The powernow-k8 cpufreq driver is activated by default in the latest Linux kernels, but requires a recompile in olders ones. In the kernel it is called CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K8. Note that you must first activate this feature in yout bios before using it. The CPU runs at 1GHZ usually and this is good as this is enough for everyday work and when the computer is idle. This feature has distinct advantages when you sleep in the same room and keep your computer running.
The clock frequency goes up if you need more speed. See /proc/cpuinfo to check the CPU frequency. I used lm_sensors to monitor my CPU and motherboard temperatures. They were in the range of 33-34C(91.4-93.2F) when just browsing or doing nothing, which is quite satisfactory.
NVidia Video drivers:
Nvidia drivers are fine. The install executables have many options. You may need to point kernel source or extarct the drivers. Once I needed to apply a patch – not from NVIDIA to make them work with the new kernels. Usually the installer precompiles and installs a module called nvidia. You have to go to runlevel 3 and reinstall the driver for every new kernel you try.
Sources:
www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-fc3.shtml
http://www.fedorafaq.org/custom_nvidia.htm
ATI Linux drivers:
It must be said: the ATI Linux driver situation used to be very bad, but now it is getting better.
I downloaded the ATI drivers and tried to install and configure them withount any luck. This was probably due to the fact that I did not know that I had to remove my previous NVIDIA drivers. I lost 24 hours trying to get it working. In the end I reintalled Fedora. I never keep something that matters on that partition. I followed these instructions (see below). I got them from Fedora Forums and FedoraFaq. The diver name is fglrx and it is a kernel module.
1) Set your default runlevel to 3.2) Remove your previous drivers - NVIDIA also!
3) You need to add following in your yum.conf
[livna-pending] name=Livna.org - Fedora Compatible Packages (pending)
baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/pending/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.unstable [livna-testing] name=Livna.org - Fedora Compatible Packages (pending)
baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/pending/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.testing4) Run the following command :
yum install ati-fglrx kernel-module-fglrx-`(uname -r)`It will install respective ATI drivers.
Also do :
yum install kernel-module-fglrx-`(rpm -q --queryformat="%{version}-%{release}\n" kernel | tail -n 1)`just to make sure that you install the newest ATI driver before you start the new kernel.
To install the driver in your new kernel before you restart.5) Add following line to your /etc/xorg.conf :
Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
your device section should look like shown below.Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "fglrx"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 M10"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
EndSection6) Reboot
7) To see if you have OpenGL working - type glxinfo.
Video card configuration panels:
After a thorough search, I never found a Nvidia configuration utility. I recall that once I found one - for NVIDIA and ATI, but I can't find the url any more.
Now I have a ATI configuration panel in the start menu, but it is almost useless as it provides almost no tuning capabilties. Comments are welcome.
Network drivers:
forcedeth is an open source network driver for nForce3 motherboards. It's part of the kernel.
nvnet is the NVIDIA driver which come along with the audio driver provided by NVIDIA
YUM install/update tool:
Try GYUM www.fedoranews.org/tchung/gyum/2.0/ . A feature that is missing form synaptic is that GYUM has no categories. There are other graphical frontends that you can read about on the same site. Another question is how to manage the 32 bit and 64 bit rpms. Everything should be in one yum.conf or you should have two yum.confs for 32 bitand 64 bit rpms? It might me just because of me but I have to admit that I often go to rpm.pbone.net. There you can specify the needed library which is part of a rpm, also quite many distros are supported.
Fedora 64 bit repositories:
- Fedora base - core,updates
- freshrpms.org
- dag.wieers.com
- rpm.livna.org - base,stable,unstable, testing
Flash player:
Probably the most annoying thing in the AMD64 world is that even though years have passed since AMD released Athlon 64, Macromedia, as far as I konw, has not released any Flash player for AMD 64 (neither Linux, nor Windows). You can try mozilla-swfdec with yum, but for me it worked only once and it didn't show everything. But that's better then nothing, I guess.
Java:
Sun has released java for AMD 64. Go to java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp and look for jdk-1_5_0-linux-amd64-rpm.bin, 39.14 MB. Blackdown has some AMD 64 bit Java: www.blackdown.org/java-linux And here is a guide to installing a java plugin in Firefox . Does it work for you?
32 bit compatibility:
Theoretically Fedora should be like every other 32 bit Linux. Keep in mind that by default 64 bit libraries are preferred. A helpful command is "linux32." It is a shell script that makes the environment look like a standard i686. Suppose you want to compile something to 32bit not 64 bit - you use linux32. Also use it when a program refuses to install saying your system is unsupported.
Games:
Games are important indicator (we talking about a desktop system) as they push system, video and audio resources to the limit. I played UT2004 64bit with nvidia geForce2 64MB and the performace was good. It's hard to make comparison as this is OpenGL and not Direct 3D. The Unreal engine is just good and I think more dependent on the CPU than most engines. Loki Quake3 for Linux was fine too, except for the missing sound. Use linux32 to install quake3. I bought an ATI video card (see above) - for the money it is a good card. I set up the drivers and installed UT2004demo 64bit. It just runs too fast! All weapons are like machine guns and all bots are extemely fast as you are too. I also tried DOOM3 Linux demo just to see how it works. The first time everything crashed but it was maybe due to the fact that I configured everything to maximal. Next time I changed the settings to medium details and it worked. Sound was missing again: "/dev/dsp failed: Input/output error" as in Quake3. !
I tried all sort of hacks but it just didn't work, but I'm sure someone has gotten it to work. In some respects, ID software are to blame.
Recommendations about Fedora Core:
- Faster booting process
- NFS service is in the default instalation running. This is not a good security practice as most people do not use NFS!
- Still no graphical installation tool. That fact is ridiculous in some respects. All other distros have I think. GYUM is probably the best candidate. It’s high time that such a tool be part of the OS.
- Where is the help (the hell)? In the start menu there MUST be a section called HELP. And if it is not built in, there should be links to: www.fedorafaq.org and www.fedoraforum.org and a few more uyseful resources.
- Why are ATI and NVIDIA drivers are NOT included in the CD installation and installed by default? Also xorg.conf should be configured. The drivers should be in rpm format in order to be easier to update. livna.rpms have them in testing. If you install a new kernel - the drivers should be reinstalled automatically. They should have a dependency to the new kernel (?) or at least you should be warned that they are not yet available. Is it copyright laws or what is the problem in this case?
- YUM should have a options for 32 bit and 64 bit updates. When there is no 64 bit package it should ask you whether you want to install the 32 bit package.
- People should somehow learn about the linux32 command and maybe this command should be improved. It should be added to the startmenu as “Execute a 32 bit application” and "Tar.gz source to compile 32 bit".
- The red notificacation area (Red Hat update tool) in the taskbar(panel) should not be only red and blue. It should be red for critical updates like kernel and selinux and other security patches, green for updates that add new faetures rather than security issues. Blue is fine for everything else.
- YUM is still slow. Shouldn’t it be compiled native by the python compiler or it is already?
- There must be a startup menu entry that install mp3 plugin, flash, java, mplayer. The user to be responsible for using and downloading this software if RedHat are so strict about that. (this is not mine idea actually)
- A Samba service running by default is not a good idea, but if it were so, it might be very useful every user to have a directory in his home directory called "Shared Documents." The samba service to have a read-only access only to each user's "Shared documents" folder. The idea is, people who are not familiar with Linux to share their documents easier.
Fedora AMD 64 specific:
Some cosmetic issues, etc:
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
This is a little off-topic. Aside from Gentoo and Fedora users, has anyone else used an x86-64 distribution with success? I’m going to be building a new system soon with an AMD chip. I will probably use Gentoo as that’s what I’m used to and use now but I was wondering about other distributions, and their present state of maturity?
has anyone else used an x86-64 distribution with success?
Yes,beside Fedora and Gentoo i’m running CentOS (RHEL4.0) now.
This might help: http://lwn.net/Articles/123820/
I’ve used Suse 9.1 & 9.2 with AMD64 3200. All the out-of-the-box stuff works fine. 9.1 didn’t like upgrading or adding any software from other than Yast upgrade. Haven’t tried 9.2 with any other upgrade source yet.
Plenty of mistakes that do not relate to not having english as first language. Please proof-read before you post your articles. Makes it hard to read with all the mistakes.
However, it is a very interesting topic
Roger, your grammar is less than perfect.
Cheers to Anton for going to the effort and sharing his x86-64 experience, and to OSNews for facilitating it.
I use Mandrakes latest x86-64 cooker and it works great
From a terminal run “nvidia-settings”.
I found the typos and spelling slightly irritating too, but maybe the editor could/should have sorted that out? (is there an editor?)
I personally found the article interesting, I’m impressed with Anton’s guile in getting some of that stuff working, and I’ve been wondering if AMD64 might be a good solution to my Laptop dilemma. (I’ve been wondering if an AMD64 laptop would be a good choice over a P4 “ball burner” or Centrino – which I’m still not sure about)
A linux laptop head-to-head would be cool, does anyone know of such a thing with an AMD64 machine featured?
I have tried both SuSE and Mandrake with great success.
Garret
Microsoft and Intel are positive about the 64 bit direction and Linux seems to be already there too.
-> Linux was there a whole long time before microsoft, this article suggest that linux is trailing behind MS, where in fact it’s exactly the other way round…
Just a note about the Java sdk you get from sun for AMD64; it is set by default to use the -server option. This may not be desired if you are using your AMD64 machine for a workstation. You may want to set it to use the -client option. Thanks for the article, I just set up a similar machine myself
We could run 64-bit Linux or NetBSD 10 years ago. On Alpha for example. We need x86-64 just to run Windows.
Everyone seems so excited about 64 bit as if it were a new technology or something. The only reason we haven’t had 64 bit processors for the masses is the wintel monopoly which had their hand forced by AMD. It should be interesting to see how things pan out in the server markets with the two open 64 bit architectures; AMD64 and Sparc versus the proprietary Power64 architecture from IBM. Intel and HP’s lame effort doesn’t even deserve a mention anymore.
Hmmn, writer asks why can’t ATI and NVIDIA drivers be included on the install disks?
Isn’t that because they are closed source drivers
“Everyone seems so excited about 64 bit as if it were a new technology or something. The only reason we haven’t had 64 bit processors for the masses is the wintel monopoly which had their hand forced by AMD. It should be interesting to see how things pan out in the server markets with the two open 64 bit architectures; AMD64 and Sparc versus the proprietary Power64 architecture from IBM. Intel and HP’s lame effort doesn’t even deserve a mention anymore.”
Actually, if you knew anything about processor/computer design, you would also know that there is a big disadvantage to using 64 bit, especially if you aren’t ready to take advantage of it. Unless you were running some sort of database, it wasn’t worth it. Hard drives were way too small, memory requirements were low, and CPU architecture just wasn’t there.
> Isn’t that because they are closed source drivers
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/
The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software.
So does this mean that short is 32 bits, int 64, and long 64?
> So does this mean that short is 32 bits, int 64, and long 64?
Not. This means (void *) is 64 bits.
Nope.
A short is still 16 bits, an int is still 32 bits, though a long is indeed 64 bits wide. Also note that all pointers are stored in 64 bits. So storing a pointer in an unsigned int is not going to work a an amd64.
BTW rthe summary of the article sucks, Most linux distro’s have been supporting the amd64 platform for more than a year (if not more than 2 already) now. The problem with Intel is that they focussed on teh Itanium, while in the meantime AMD has a big hit with their x86-64 CPU. Now that Intel finally has their own x86-64 CPU, Microsoft is getting warmed up for 64 bits computing too.
I ran x86_64 fedora for a while. It was great & quiet … but I use the machine as a media/email/backups more than anything. It works great except (sadly) there was no realplayer. I use realplayer to stream BBC Radio and I could never get it to work with Helix or 32 bit Realplayer.
Yes, BBC radio does mean that much to me.
Both Debian pure64 and Ubuntu amd64 ports work fine as well. I have been using them for over a year now.
using SuSE 9.2 on AMD64 and it’s almost perfect.
there are just two minor issues for desktop use:
1. Flash doesn’t work with a Firefox that was
compiled for x86_64 bit arch. You need to grab a firefox
that was compiled for x86 or use konqueror which can
work with a 32 bit flash.
2. xine with the w32codec’s isn’t as stable for streaming
windows media.
Everything else just works (RealPlayer 10 wors just fine).
I am using the 64 bit Linuux port from RHEL 3.0 days. as Centos. CENTOS 4.0 uses RHEL 4.0 and the multilib is really well set. I have Mplayer , Realplayer working like charm for me. Even Adobe Acrobat 7.0 works well for me. The new NVIDIA driver works for me. I had to add some repositories for FC3 in Yum.conf for adding extras. ndiswrapper also works to get my broadcom card working. So in terms of what I miss from a 32bit Linux ; Well Macromedia Flash for one, but really it is annoying any way.
On completely other point , Solaris on AMD64 is pretty good too. With packages from bolthole.com it is certainly going to be a competition.
I used Fedora on a AMD64 2800 for a short time as a game server. It was a little flakey but overall decent. I will say the AMD64 cpu was a huge improvement over the P4 2.53GHZ that was in the server previously i think most fo the performance gain was due to the embedded memory controller.
GYUM is dead. YUMEX (http://fedoranews.org/tchung/yumex/) takes over from where it lets off.
I’m running Suse 9.1 on some Quad-Opterons here, and all in all, it’s working very fine, nearly no difference to an IA32 Linux.
However, there were some minor problems, let me sum them up for you:
1. Java
Though our boxes come from Sun (v40z), Sun hasn’t yet managed to port their JDK to 64bit. This is a problem for Java applications making use of JNI, as JNI thus requires 32bit libraries which, in most cases, aren’t installed. This is particulary interesting for Tomcat based web applications making use of e. g. rrdtool, icmp stuff etc.)
2. My first point also implies that installing these 32bit libraries means you’ll probably need some other 32bit libraries they are depending on
3. Installing binary application can become difficult if these applications depend on 32bit libraries not available or attempt to call syscalls themselves (e. g. statically linked apps).
4. Porting applications can become a pain in the ass if these applications weren’t written in a portable way. Most of the problems arise when it comes to pointer arithmetic.
As already mentioned before, on AMD64, sizeof(int)=4 (still), sizeof(long)=64. There are some applications out there casting pointers to unsigned (or even signed, lol) integers in order to perform pointer arithmetic like manual alignment etc.
Apart from that, I have to admit I was very happy to see Suse running that well on x86_64. Speed improvement is significant, though this has nothing to do with 64bit at all (more because of the Opterons great design and the advantages of AMDs NUMA arch in comparison to Intels SMP systems).
Well i use for amd64 gplflash latest version, and works at 80%
it’s better then nothing …
I have an HP machine with MCE 2005 on it. It’s an AMD64 3400+ with a gig of ram and all the usualy tv tuner, dvd writer stuff on it the MCE machines come with. Any chance of getting Linux to run on it and perform the same functions of MCE? Why? Just because…
This was not the final version of my article. OSNEWS publish it because they could not contact me because of wrong alternative mail address.
I may create a web-site devoted to Fedora AMD 64, based on this article and your comments.
I did not mean that Linux is trailing. 64 bit Linux was out long before the unreleased 64 bit Windows.
I am using archlinux on my amd64. We have ported a ton of packages and all i can say is the gentoo guys better watch their back! We should be able to release an arch for the x86_64 soon. for more info go to http://genesis.blogdns.net ;-p
“The red notifiacation area ” ummm… there is something called spell check.
One of the articles first comments is that 64-bit CPUs ability to address more RAM isn’t very important. For a desktop machine that might just be true. I however have been administering Opteron servers with either Fedora or RHEL3/4 and 16GB of RAM each for over a year now. As database servers the amount of RAM is very important, the more the merrier. In this regard and for the bang for the buck, AMD64 is great. I’d love to be able to get them with 16 or more DIMM slots in a 1U or 2U form factor.
Anybody want to explain how Sparc is more open than Power?