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Debian GNU/Linux now in AMD64 form

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the yarg-look-over-the-port-side dept.

treff89 writes "Debian GNU/Linux (Sarge) has now been released in an AMD64 variant. It has been declared stable. While updates will not be as regular as the popular x86 Debian, it's great to know that the newer processors are in the picture. Find out more here: http://distrowatch.com/2717 ; Release notes can be found here: http://amd64.debian.net/docs/release-notes/amd64/r elease-notes/"

20 comments

  1. :-I by SFSouthpaw · · Score: 1, Troll
    While updates will not be as regular as the popular x86 Debian

    Damn, just when I was getting spoiled by the quick release of Sarge!

    --
    ---southpaw
  2. Not to complain (just a bit, really) by Frumious+Wombat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Last year or so I was having fits with RHEL on AMD-64, and thought that I'd at least try installing Debian on a box in order to get a second opinion. I was surprised to find no AMD-64 (despite their balooning popularity), but plenty of odd architectures that probably had only two or three users. Personally, this seems to me a good time to guarantee AMD64 releases on a timely schedule, and (gently) tell the MIPS and VAX users that their release schedule is going to be somewhat slowed. I applaud what Debian does (really; I ran it rather happily on a laptop for a couple of years), but am often baffled how they go about doing it.

    --
    the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
    1. Re:Not to complain (just a bit, really) by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Like all free software projects they work on what they feel like working on at any specific time. No more, no less. Debian isn't a busness. They are not trying to make money. Even their secondary quest of being a popular distribution is only a little self ego stroking and not a direct goal. If someone wanted to have an AMD64 port it would get done. Eventually someone wanted one.

      Redhat and other for profit companies find goals of market share to be of higher priority than fun development. That's why they end up more ridged and boring.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:Not to complain (just a bit, really) by erlenic · · Score: 1

      I remember reading a few months back that someone had proposed doing just that. Basically, the proposal was to leave a few archs as fully supported (I think i386, x86_64, PowerPC, and one other) He wanted to create another class of archs, somewhere between "fully supported" and "unofficial side project" that weren't updated as fast, and that wouldn't hold back the "fully supported" archs. Never heard what happened with it though.

  3. boosting "Page Hit Ranking" ? by uyguremre · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wonder if giving the distrowatch link is an attempt to boost the Page Hit Ranking at distrowatch. Hmmm...

  4. Speeeeeeeeeed by cyberlackey · · Score: 1, Funny

    Now the cyclic dependencies plauged by the newer Debian release can fail with 64-bit precision!

    --
    All children left unattended will be sold as slaves.
  5. Just installed it by Longshanks197 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recently purchased an AMD 3500+ system (parts and self-assembled) and used a daily snapshot of the installer a day or so before the release. The installation was a breeze, now I'm in the "how do I get all the applications I use installed and working" phase. I compiled a new kernel (the Debian way) and made a madwifi and ATI kernel module package last night and it seems to be working. OpenOffice is in the works, there are some packages built but not the most important one (the actual bin package). I am not a software programmer and really rely on these talented Debian maintainers for porting the packages over. Thank you for all your hard work and I look forward to having a complete 64bit OS.

    --
    "You have the right to free speech...as long as, you aren't dumb enough to actually try it." - The Clash
    1. Re:Just installed it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With ubuntu, I was able to get an ATI kernel by downloading a couple packages with aptitude (still had to manually edit xorg.conf, why isn't there a debconf for that?). OpenOffice is there, not like I really use it much however (the WP app drives me nuts with half-assed formatting. Saving PDFs is nice though.).

      It's good to know that Debian finally supports AMD64 as a first-tier arch, but it appears they're still catching up.

      Since you have to run 32 bit apps in a chroot, I've realized I can run any damn thing I want in the chroot. I've been playing in a chroot with gentoo using uClibc instead of glibc. Learned the hard way to not bind mount points to /proc and /usr/share/fonts too early, since it'll reach out and hose the host system if you're not careful.

    2. Re:Just installed it by erlenic · · Score: 1

      I've been using it on a production server for 6 months, and I've been very happy with it. Granted it only has Apache, PHP, and MySQL running, no GUI. I only had one problem, and it was my own fault.

  6. Gentoo for AMD64 anyone? by Plac3bo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously, Gentoo has incredible support for AMD64 right now and many people working to make it even better.

    Cue Gentoo-haters... NOW.

    And for users that don't want to spend alot of time compiling (is that an oxy-moron on AMD64?), use a Stage3 base install and install all other programs using emerge -k switch for binary packages only.

    1. Re:Gentoo for AMD64 anyone? by Wolfger · · Score: 1

      Right. What's "a lot of time"? I had Gentoo installed on my AMD64 from stage 1 in an evening. Debian was one of the distros I was considering, but they did not support amd64 back then. Too little, too late. I am a devoted Gentooist now! Gentoo support for amd64 rocks.

      --
      Nothing to see here. Move along.
  7. What's the advantage of the AMD64 version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe I don't see it, but what's the motivation for installing this over the standard i386 version? Does it run faster on the AMD64? I've heard that lots of drivers don't work with the AMD64 linux versions.

    1. Re:What's the advantage of the AMD64 version? by Plac3bo · · Score: 1

      Yes, if everything is running in true 64bit mode and is using the optimizations, it will run faster. However, many optimizations must be implemented at a very low level and many programs are not utilizing the full potential. One such program that is, is MPlayer, a good portion of the code is implemented in Assembly specifically taking advantage of the 64bit architecture. But, if you install a x86 version of Linux or Windows on this hardware, you won't actually see an increase in speed.

      I haven't encounter a single driver that does not work on my Gentoo AMD64 platform, but, everything runs very fast.

    2. Re:What's the advantage of the AMD64 version? by True+Grit · · Score: 1
      However, many optimizations must be implemented at a very low level and many programs are not utilizing the full potential. One such program that is, is MPlayer, a good portion of the code is implemented in Assembly specifically taking advantage of the 64bit architecture.

      MPlayer is using the media instructions (SSE) that are in both Intel and AMD chips, this has nothing to do with 64 bit mode. Any application recompiled for AMD64 will benefit, because AMD64 is more than just widening all registers to 64 bits, it includes doubling the number of general purpose and media registers (16 new registers total). For most apps the extra registers make a difference, thus the typical %10-%20 speedup seen, and for some apps they make a *huge* difference.
    3. Re:What's the advantage of the AMD64 version? by joto · · Score: 1
      Yes, if everything is running in true 64bit mode and is using the optimizations, it will run faster. However, many optimizations must be implemented at a very low level and many programs are not utilizing the full potential.

      Huh? Taking care of "low-level" stuiff, is is exactly what a compiler is doing. If you recompile for amd64, it will usually get faster (unless it gets slower due to cache issues).

      One such program that is, is MPlayer, a good portion of the code is implemented in Assembly specifically taking advantage of the 64bit architecture. But, if you install a x86 version of Linux or Windows on this hardware, you won't actually see an increase in speed.

      Huh? You don't think mplayer is at least as good optimized on x86 as amd64? That would be pretty strange, as x86 has been it's main target all along. Besides, unless you're running on x86, you can't use the native windows codecs, making mplayer somewhat less useful.

  8. Excellent News! by TripHammer · · Score: 1

    This should have hit the main page in my opinion.

  9. Re:No one cares by turbidostato · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or maybe this is no news for anyone that cares about Debian on AMD64.

  10. AMD64 linux has a LONG way to go by FictionPimp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder how long it will take for amd64 linux to work as smooth as winxp64 works now. I mean, the kernel has support for 32bit and 64bit apps, why bother with the chroot, we just need apt or portage to support 32 and 64bit apps at the same time. So far gentoo is close, but you will still screw up your system if you emerge a x86 app while using amd64 OS. So you still have to install a chroot, emerge in there, then move the libs and exe out of the chroot (or run everything in the chroot). In windows, you just install the app.

    Linux is great, but I'll stick to my x86 version of ubuntu on my AMD64 until AMD64 linux matures to windows's level.

    (This may have changed recently, My last exp with amd64 linux was gentoo about 2 months ago.)

  11. Re:No one cares by True+Grit · · Score: 1

    Or maybe the ones waiting for Debian to get on the AMD64 bandwagon just went to Ubuntu...