Hi Guys
Its time to get those Athlon 64's running sweetly under a 64 bit version of Linux, here's a guide to show you how. When AMD designed the AMD64 architecture they made several key changes to the CPU, including extending the existing GPR's from 32 bit to 64 bit, and adding new instructions to handle the new 64 bit values. The address space is also expanded to 40 bits, for a limit of 1TB of RAM, with the option of extending it further in the future. AMD64 also adds more registers, doubling both the GPR's and the SSE registers. Interestingly the x86 floating point unit is left untouched-compilers and developers are urged to use SSE for floating point operations instead. The extra registers and other architectural clean-ups do provide a good reason to play with the AMD64 though:greatly improved performance.
/proc/cpuinfo on an Athlon 64
pv@optus: ~ % cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 31
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 2299.915
cache size : 512 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 pni syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow lahf_lm
bogomips : 4440.06
TLB size : 1088 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp
Linux on AMD64
To realise this promise of extra performance, you need to use a 64 bit OS in conjunction with an AMD 64 based system. And for this, there's no better choice than Linux. You can also put together a 32 bit compatability environment to run binaries that haven't or won't be ported to AMD64: good examples include games, WINE (which only runs on x86), OpenOffice.org, and FireFox. FireFox in itself is fine in 64 bit, but you'll need to run a 32 bit FireFox to use closed-source 32 bit plug-ins. #The only really important limitation of a 64 bit Linux system is that while 32 bit applications can be loaded, 32 bit drivers can't, so you have to be careful with binary only drivers Nvidia have AMD64 versions of their video and motherboard drivers, but ATI and most other vendors don't yet, and hacks like 'ndiswrapper' also won't work. Just about every other piece of hardware supported by open-source drivers should work fine though.
Many distributions now have an AMD64 port, but their organisation can be quite varied, particularly when it comes to the way they handle 32 bit compatability. The core issue with running 32 bit applications is that you can't mix 32 bit and 64 bit code in a single application, so to run 32 bit applications, you need a complete set of 32 bit libraries-everything from glibc through to the X, SDL, and OpenGL libraries. Debian and Gentoo have taken a different approach. Because they package so much software anyway, they have decided to throw away 32 bit compatability in the core OS. Everything looks just like a regular system, with all the libraries in the 'lib' folders, but its all pure 64 bit code, with no real provision for 32 bit compatability. They do offer a very neat way of handling 32 bit applications though- a 'chroot' environment. A chroot basically lets you reassign the location of the root directory for a certain application, preventing it from accessing any files beyond the chroot. This is often used to keep potentially exploitable server applications locked away from sensitive parts of your filesystem, but Debian and Gentoo use it to build a 32 bit environment inside your 64 bit system.
Installing Debian-AMD64
Follow these steps to install Debian AMD64:
Step 1. Download and burn a network install CD. This contains the Debian installer and kernal, and a selection of base packages. Other packages will be installed via the internet. Grab the CD ISO from the following URL.
http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/install-images/sid-amd64-netinst.iso
Step 2.
Boot the CD and run through the installer. Debian's installer is still text based but its relatively easy to use. After partitioning, the base packages and bootloader will be installed.
Step 3.
Once the installer has finished, reboot into your new Debian system and run throught the initial configuration wizard. This includes setting the root password, creating your user account, and selecting which packages to install. When the time comes to select where to install packages from, select the 'http' method, and then 'enter information manually'. Enter 'debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org' as the mirror hostname, and '/pure64' as the mirror directory.
Step 4.
Select which packages you would like to install. You can enter manual package selection if you've got a few days to spare, but its probably best to just enable the 'Desktop environment' package set and leave it at that. More packages can be installed later with apt-get
Step 5.
The selected packages will be downloaded and installed, and you'll be prompted for any configuration options they might need. Once complete, you'll be able to log into a text console. Install any other packages you might like-some good starting points would be 'x-window-system-core', to get a working X server, and either 'gnome' or 'kde' to install these desktop environments.
To install packages, use apt-get like so: apt-get install x-window-system-core. And thats it!!! Debians extensive library includes 64 bit versions of pretty much everything you'll need, which makes using 64 bit Linux a breeze.
Mmmm pure sex on the desktop, 64 bit Debian linux
Images courtesy of OSDir.com
Written material courtesy of Atomic.
Its time to get those Athlon 64's running sweetly under a 64 bit version of Linux, here's a guide to show you how. When AMD designed the AMD64 architecture they made several key changes to the CPU, including extending the existing GPR's from 32 bit to 64 bit, and adding new instructions to handle the new 64 bit values. The address space is also expanded to 40 bits, for a limit of 1TB of RAM, with the option of extending it further in the future. AMD64 also adds more registers, doubling both the GPR's and the SSE registers. Interestingly the x86 floating point unit is left untouched-compilers and developers are urged to use SSE for floating point operations instead. The extra registers and other architectural clean-ups do provide a good reason to play with the AMD64 though:greatly improved performance.
/proc/cpuinfo on an Athlon 64
pv@optus: ~ % cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 31
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 2299.915
cache size : 512 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 pni syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow lahf_lm
bogomips : 4440.06
TLB size : 1088 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp
Linux on AMD64
To realise this promise of extra performance, you need to use a 64 bit OS in conjunction with an AMD 64 based system. And for this, there's no better choice than Linux. You can also put together a 32 bit compatability environment to run binaries that haven't or won't be ported to AMD64: good examples include games, WINE (which only runs on x86), OpenOffice.org, and FireFox. FireFox in itself is fine in 64 bit, but you'll need to run a 32 bit FireFox to use closed-source 32 bit plug-ins. #The only really important limitation of a 64 bit Linux system is that while 32 bit applications can be loaded, 32 bit drivers can't, so you have to be careful with binary only drivers Nvidia have AMD64 versions of their video and motherboard drivers, but ATI and most other vendors don't yet, and hacks like 'ndiswrapper' also won't work. Just about every other piece of hardware supported by open-source drivers should work fine though.
Many distributions now have an AMD64 port, but their organisation can be quite varied, particularly when it comes to the way they handle 32 bit compatability. The core issue with running 32 bit applications is that you can't mix 32 bit and 64 bit code in a single application, so to run 32 bit applications, you need a complete set of 32 bit libraries-everything from glibc through to the X, SDL, and OpenGL libraries. Debian and Gentoo have taken a different approach. Because they package so much software anyway, they have decided to throw away 32 bit compatability in the core OS. Everything looks just like a regular system, with all the libraries in the 'lib' folders, but its all pure 64 bit code, with no real provision for 32 bit compatability. They do offer a very neat way of handling 32 bit applications though- a 'chroot' environment. A chroot basically lets you reassign the location of the root directory for a certain application, preventing it from accessing any files beyond the chroot. This is often used to keep potentially exploitable server applications locked away from sensitive parts of your filesystem, but Debian and Gentoo use it to build a 32 bit environment inside your 64 bit system.
Installing Debian-AMD64
Follow these steps to install Debian AMD64:
Step 1. Download and burn a network install CD. This contains the Debian installer and kernal, and a selection of base packages. Other packages will be installed via the internet. Grab the CD ISO from the following URL.
http://debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org/install-images/sid-amd64-netinst.iso
Step 2.
Boot the CD and run through the installer. Debian's installer is still text based but its relatively easy to use. After partitioning, the base packages and bootloader will be installed.
Step 3.
Once the installer has finished, reboot into your new Debian system and run throught the initial configuration wizard. This includes setting the root password, creating your user account, and selecting which packages to install. When the time comes to select where to install packages from, select the 'http' method, and then 'enter information manually'. Enter 'debian-amd64.alioth.debian.org' as the mirror hostname, and '/pure64' as the mirror directory.
Step 4.
Select which packages you would like to install. You can enter manual package selection if you've got a few days to spare, but its probably best to just enable the 'Desktop environment' package set and leave it at that. More packages can be installed later with apt-get
Step 5.
The selected packages will be downloaded and installed, and you'll be prompted for any configuration options they might need. Once complete, you'll be able to log into a text console. Install any other packages you might like-some good starting points would be 'x-window-system-core', to get a working X server, and either 'gnome' or 'kde' to install these desktop environments.
To install packages, use apt-get like so: apt-get install x-window-system-core. And thats it!!! Debians extensive library includes 64 bit versions of pretty much everything you'll need, which makes using 64 bit Linux a breeze.
Mmmm pure sex on the desktop, 64 bit Debian linux
Images courtesy of OSDir.com
Written material courtesy of Atomic.
