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x86-64 Slackware Clone Released

Posted by timothy on from the uniformity-in-diversity dept.

Rob_Ogilvie points out that another distribution for x86-64 (AKA AMD64) has been released: "This time it's Slamd64. Slamd64 10.1 is based off Slackware 10.1. Developer Fred Emmott ported Slackware to AMD64 in his spare time, trying to keep the distribution as close to Slackware proper as possible (even keeping binary compatibility for many existing packages). Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there!"

14 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Finally we have choices? by kwiqsilver · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've had AMD64 Gentoo running for over a year.

    1. Re:Finally we have choices? by thynk · · Score: 3, Informative

      What about the 64-Bit version of Windows XP?

      Crap for drivers. Only been running an AMD64 for a few weeks now, so I've yet to try out the flavors of linux for it, but only ran XP64 for about an hour before formatting the drive. Doesn't do much good to run 64bit OS if you can't talk to your printer and you have to use hacked up inf files to get the on board NIC working.

      Give it a year or so to get some freak'n driver support and then give it a shot. Till then, stick with XP pro or Linux.

      --

      Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
  2. Why not Debian? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Debian on AMD64

  3. Re:Forgive My Noobness But... by foobarra · · Score: 2, Informative

    You are correct, however, this is news for Slackware and 64-bit processor support. Working for a large hosting company, we get many requests for Linux operating systems that are not "the big ones", and not listed on our typical build pages. Users want an OS they are comfortable with, not just what we advertise. Thanks, Fred - a quick test install on my Opteron scratch box works as expected. (And it is Slack - not rpms or debs or ebuilds...)

  4. Uh.. by pherthyl · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is good, but it's not like there was no choice for x86_64 before. Debian, (K)Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mandriva all have 64 bit versions out.

  5. not finally by __aaitqo8496 · · Score: 2, Informative

    In case you hadn't heard, AMD64 distros have been abailable for a while now. Want something Debian-based? Try Ubuntu Hoary, which has been out for several months now.

    ISO for AMD64

  6. Re:Forgive My Noobness But... by fred87 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I did no K8-specific optimisations, just generic x86_64, so it should work fine on EM64T.

  7. Re: Forgive My Noobness But... by NerdOfPrey · · Score: 2, Informative
    From this article:
    Intel was reluctant to swallow its pride and admit that AMD was defining 64-bit computing, so it announced a 64-bit instruction set of its own called Extended Memory 64-bit Technology (EM64T). Frothy name aside, EM64T is almost identical to AMD64, enabling it to run Windows XP x64. Newer Pentium 4s, such as the 600 and 800 series, support EM64T. The main difference between EM64T and AMD64 is that EM64T includes SSE3 support, which has been added to only the latest Venice core Athlon 64 processors.
  8. Mirror problems by fred87 · · Score: 3, Informative

    We've been having problems with rsync timeouts and I've not been able to get hold of the admin of the primary mirror. ftp.heanet.ie/pub/slamd64/ contains the .xdelta files for final compared to RC4 - full isos should have finished in a few hours. Sorry for the delay.

  9. wha...? by KillerBob · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's not a clone of Slack 10.1, it's an officially sanctionned port.

    Furthermore, Slack 10.1 will run just fine on AMD64, because AMD64, and ia64 as well, are backwards compatible and will run code intended for 32-bit processors. The difference is that the code in slamd64 is optimized for Athlon64/Opteron, a feat which is entirely doable by anybody who knows how to compile a kernel and their own software.

    Don't get me wrong. It's a great boon to people who prefer Slack and run AMD64, but that only comes in saving them the time to compile their own, but it's by no means the great saviour: I've been running Slack 10.1 on my Athlon64-based server for a while, and all I had to do was compile a kernel and recompile Apache/PHP/MySQL/Sendmail/UW-IMAP. Technically, I didn't even have to recompile those, either....

    --
    If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
    1. Re:wha...? by Rob_Ogilvie · · Score: 2, Informative
      That's not a clone of Slack 10.1, it's an officially sanctionned port.
      It is a port, but it's not official.
      Furthermore, Slack 10.1 will run just fine on AMD64, because AMD64, and ia64 as well, are backwards compatible and will run code intended for 32-bit processors.
      Yes, Slack 10.1 will run fine on x86-64 boxes, but it won't take advantage of any of the 64-bit extentions OOTB (nor ever as well as slamd64). And no, IA64 is not backwards compatible and will not run code intended for 32-bit processors without emulation. That's why x86-64 is so popular...
      --
      Rob
    2. Re:wha...? by fred87 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I applied no patches which weren't required to make packages compile/run on x86_64. I do not see how this can be considered ruining slack, rather than a neccessity.

  10. Re:what's the best AMD64 hardware? by tweek · · Score: 3, Informative

    I bought my beast from Micronux:

    http://www.micronux.com/

    This model:

    here

    It's a good system and it came with CentOS4 for x86_64 which I gave a few days before wiping and installing x86_64 gentoo.

    I've since bought an additional GB of memory to dedicate to various vmware machines for envrionment testing and some work-specific windows stuff.

    The only issues I've had with an all x86_64 system has been related to codeweavers and transgaming stuff. Oh and some issues with Flash. I spend most of time browsing with a native compiled firefox version and switching to firefox-bin under multilib when I need the non-64bit plugins.

    I even did my first stage one install in a LONG time (I normally do a stage 2 on installs for obvious time reasons) just to see how it would perform and even with just the 1GB of ram at the time, I was done in a couple of hours and running X. The system really does scream. FYI, PCI-Express in SLI mode is non-existant under linux right now but dual-head works fine.

    Micronux is a solid company and I plan on buying again from them in the future.

    --
    "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
  11. It's still commercially distributed.... by arfonrg · · Score: 2, Informative

    I pay for a subscription from Slackware! Just go to the Slackware store.

    --
    Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll