64-bit Linux On The Opteron

JigSaw writes "A few moths ago Robert Minvielle put to test AMD's Opteron regarding its 64-bit Linux compatibility. The results back then were not very positive but he is now back testing more 64-bit updated distros: Gentoo, SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and Fedora. And this time the results are more positive with Linux offering good Opteron support where Windows-64 doesn't seem to. FreeBSD also lists the AMD64 platform as a tier-1 architecture."

Comments

Re:Market Share

[metallicagoaltender]

That conclusion is a bit of a leap of faith - what's to say people will take to Linux just because it adapts better? I'd guess that more people will wait for Windows to provide solid support for new technology than switch OSes just because they can be more cutting edge.

Re:Market Share

[ciaran_o_riordan]

A better conclusion would be that GNU/Linux will _never_lose_ market share due to evolution of technology.
(DRM, TCPA, etc. omitted)

hurdles

[potpie]

I think there is a general benefit to Open Source that we haven't been able to observe until now. It is a fact that Open Source is more easily ported and adapted, but the major systems haven't changed much for the past many years (Mac, X86, etc.). Now that an entirely new system is out, proprietary software developers will be stumbling over themselves as they try feverishly to make something from scratch, while Open Source developers will benefit from working as a group.

In a way, this has always been the way it worked, but now that there is a large jump in computing (32 to 64 bit processing is a pretty big jump, neh?) and the scale of development is made larger, the Open Source projects will show just how slow and inefficient proprietary software developing methods are.

What's needed is a Killer App

[Ridgelift]

...my point is that Linux has 64-bit support and it has it now. Linux and AMD are a natural partnership.

What's needed is a killer game that runs on Linux-64. The must-have toy will drive Linux faster and further than any business app could. It's the reason I know most people overspend on a PC, so they can play the latest and greatest games.

Intel's known this for years. That's why they give early release processors to the top game manufacturers so that when the new processor hits the street, there's software that'll shine with it.

Re:What's needed is a Killer App

[NerveGas]

RDBMS systems are your killer app. Opterons are well-suited to RDBMS work, to the point of nearly seeming intended for it. Between the "big iron" memory architecture and the 64-bit address space, AMD has finally provided commodity hardware that can truly tackle real, heavy database environments.

The only reason I didn't buy an Opteron for our main RDBMS server this year was because they weren't ready for our peak season. This coming year, I'll be getting a minimum of a dual-opteron, more likely a quad - and getting it for a fraction of what similar performance would cost from Sun.

steve

Re:Windows 64

[ctr2sprt]

Do you have any actual evidence to support this claim? Don't bother answering, I know very well you don't. For crying out loud, moderators, it's your job to weed out inflammatory, made-up nonsense like this! It's not being biased to mod down articles that make extraordinary claims with zero evidence - it's responsible moderation.

I suppose I should spend some time demonstrating why this is stupid to avoid being flamebait. So first, Intel isn't working on a competitive processor, not in the sense you mean it. If they are working on one, it would almost certainly be a year or longer before they could roll it out, and there's no way MS would agree to wait that long. Second, there is no possible reason for MS to withhold Windows just because Intel asked them to. MS is allowing free operating systems to have a monopoly on AMD64 right now. Do you really think they'd do that voluntarily? Third, it seems clear that Intel is betting on there being no market for desktop 64-bit machines. I don't want to get into that particular flamewar, so let's just say that, right or not, that's what Intel believes, so it makes sense for their business decisions to reflect that belief.

64 bit ...not nescessarily for performance

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I have had a 64 bit AIX machine running for a while with the 64 bit kernel. While I have not really had the load yet to test it, I and many others in the AIX realm don't necessarily think that 64 bit is going to increase performance. How do you test a performance increase when it only increases by a few nanoseconds??

64 bit is all about memory addresability. You can directly address more memory on a 64 bit machine then you can a 32 bit machine. Period. When you would like to get the best performance you can out of your RDBMS, most shops like to load as much of the DB as they can into memory. DB's are getting larger then 4 GB now! :) So, the need for more memory is upon us.

BillG said 640 KB out to be enough for anyone..ha ha Bill. Very funny.

Windows applications

[Sheepdot]

If 40% of windows applications are going to have 64-bit support in the next year, isn't that a high enough number to actually *justify* getting the machine for a Windows-based system?

I mean, I understand that Linux applications will most likely have 64-bit support a lot sooner, but 40% of windows application support in the first year sure looks like enough of a reason to purchase the machines now.

I guess I don't see a huge argument in justifying that only %40 of windows applications are going to have 64-bit support when there's virtually no drawback to buying a 64-bit processor from AMD vs. an equally priced 32-bit processor from Intel.

Sure, you can argue that it's a "waste", but even if only three of the big players have 64-bit applications (Microsoft, Macromedia, Adobe) within the first year, that's still 90% of the applications that are used on Windows machines in a corporate or even personal environment for the average user.

The driving force is going to be the gaming community, and AFAIK, the major game software companies plan on having 64-bit games available too, so I fail to see what the real issue regarding support is.

If %40,%30,%20,%10 is a fair assessment of compatibility over the next five years, that means that in three years %90 of the Windows applications can be assumed to have 64-bit support, which is perfectly fine for the corporate or average 3-year life cycle of a computer.

Or am I missing something?