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aVirulence
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Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 170
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 Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject: New system (Would like some advise) |
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Hi there,
Hopefully tomorrow I will get my new system with an AMD X2 5200+ processor. I'm upgrading from a AMD Athlon64 3200+. When I got the 3200+ I decided to go linux-only. Starting with SUSE (I thought at the time Gentoo was too hard) and finally switching to Gentoo. I guess Gentoo has been my only OS for the last year or so, but I'm on 32 bit, because I don't like missing things like native flash support. I think I like the more automagically-working way.
What I would like to know are two things. First, did the situation for 64-bit users improve in the last 1.5 year or so? I would really like to switch to the 64-bit version, but I don't have the time to mess around with linux-stuffs AND to mess around the 64-bit issues. Second, since I will get a dual core processor, does any of you have some tips for the MAKEOPTS and other compiling flags? I don't know much about them, but I would really like to make use of the OMGEXTREMEFAST  processor.
Thanks for your help! |
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i92guboj
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 10315
Location: Córdoba (Spain)
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:03 pm Post subject: Re: New system (Would like some advise) |
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| aVirulence wrote: |
What I would like to know are two things. First, did the situation for 64-bit users improve in the last 1.5 year or so? I would really like to switch to the 64-bit version, but I don't have the time to mess around with linux-stuffs AND to mess around the 64-bit issues. Second, since I will get a dual core processor, does any of you have some tips for the MAKEOPTS and other compiling flags? I don't know much about them, but I would really like to make use of the OMGEXTREMEFAST processor.
Thanks for your help! |
Hi,
Well, for native -compilable- programs it has improved, a lot of compilation annoyances have been solved. If you want to know about propietary -closed source- software, the thing has not changed much. Adobe/Macromedia refuses to release a 64 bits version for the flash plugins (still, gnash is an open source alternative that is evolving, but it is not quite near yet), the win32codecs libs are also the same 32bits dlls, and, as such, require you to have a 32 bits version of mplayer to make use of them (not much of a problem, since mplayer32 can co-exist in peace with the compiled (64 bits) version without any problem.
About makeopts, n + 1 is the number usually considered a sane value. Being n the number of cores that your machine has (thus, the number of processes that can be truly run in a concurrent manner).
For the rest, dont worry too much, just pick the right flags for your arch. You dont need any megaspecial tunning, your new machine will run faster cause it IS faster, not cause any crazy tunning. A right cflags setting for your arch would be something like CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe", with a CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" if you use a 64 bits install or a CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" if you choose a 32 bits stage. Remember to choose the correct stage for the arch you want to go with. |
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aVirulence
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Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 170
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject: Re: New system (Would like some advise) |
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| 6thpink wrote: |
Well, for native -compilable- programs it has improved, a lot of compilation annoyances have been solved. If you want to know about propietary -closed source- software, the thing has not changed much. Adobe/Macromedia refuses to release a 64 bits version for the flash plugins (still, gnash is an open source alternative that is evolving, but it is not quite near yet), the win32codecs libs are also the same 32bits dlls, and, as such, require you to have a 32 bits version of mplayer to make use of them (not much of a problem, since mplayer32 can co-exist in peace with the compiled (64 bits) version without any problem.
About makeopts, n + 1 is the number usually considered a sane value. Being n the number of cores that your machine has (thus, the number of processes that can be truly run in a concurrent manner).
For the rest, dont worry too much, just pick the right flags for your arch. You dont need any megaspecial tunning, your new machine will run faster cause it IS faster, not cause any crazy tunning. A right cflags setting for your arch would be something like CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe", with a CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" if you use a 64 bits install or a CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" if you choose a 32 bits stage. Remember to choose the correct stage for the arch you want to go with. |
Thank you for your (quick) answer. How's a 32-bit chroot working? Is it any good? I wasn't going for any crazy tuning, but I was just wondering if I could use any special flags (maybe even a USE-flag) since I'll be using a dual core processor. I was wondering if programs or processes could extra benefit of that. |
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geniux
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Joined: 19 Feb 2004
Posts: 1400
Location: /home
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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Most apps works great on a 64 bit environment, Adobe Flashplayer 9 works really nice with firefox-bin (32 bit version of Firefox) and mplayer-bin puts in the win32codecs so you can watch your wmv's if you have any  So pretty much have happend
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i92guboj
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
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Location: Córdoba (Spain)
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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For compilations MAKEOPTS="3" should be fine for you.
For the rest, just make sure you enable SMP support in your kernel, that should enable support for multiple cpu systems. The kernel will distribute the load between the two cores as needed, as far as I know there is nothing more to care about. The managing of processes is all a kernel task, there is nothing you need to do in userland about that.
About the chroot, a chroot is useful if you want to compile your own 32bits userland stuff, but, if you just need support for some programs, like opera, flash, firefox or mpllayer, you will find all the precompiled binaries that you need in portage, no need to do a chhroot for that. Still, if you decide to, you can find a nice guide here:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD64#Setting_up_a_32bit_chroot_environment
I hope it helped a bit  |
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aVirulence
Apprentice
Joined: 07 Feb 2006
Posts: 170
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| geniux wrote: | | Most apps works great on a 64 bit environment, Adobe Flashplayer 9 works really nice with firefox-bin (32 bit version of Firefox) and mplayer-bin puts in the win32codecs so you can watch your wmv's if you have any So pretty much have happend |
Hey, actually those worked when I tried a 64-bit environment. I was just hoping some other things had happened, still I think I'll be trying it anyway.
| 6thpink wrote: |
PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 11:01 am Post subject:
For compilations MAKEOPTS="3" should be fine for you.
For the rest, just make sure you enable SMP support in your kernel, that should enable support for multiple cpu systems. The kernel will distribute the load between the two cores as needed, as far as I know there is nothing more to care about. The managing of processes is all a kernel task, there is nothing you need to do in userland about that. |
Okay, that sounds about right, I'm really eager to see the speed of my compilations.
| 6thpink wrote: | About the chroot, a chroot is useful if you want to compile your own 32bits userland stuff, but, if you just need support for some programs, like opera, flash, firefox or mpllayer, you will find all the precompiled binaries that you need in portage, no need to do a chhroot for that. Still, if you decide to, you can find a nice guide here:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD64#Setting_up_a_32bit_chroot_environment
I hope it helped a bit |
Yeah, about that, as you say it's probably not necessary for me. And surely you helped.
Thanks both! |
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yngwin
Retired Dev
Joined: 19 Dec 2002
Posts: 4572
Location: Suzhou, China
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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| 6thpink wrote: | | MAKEOPTS="3" |
You mean MAKEOPTS="-j3"
And BTW, Flash also works fine in 64-bits Konqueror with nsplugins32. Also, if you get a recent MPlayer build (like 1.0-rc1 or subversion) it supports most Windows Media now without win32codecs.
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Gentoo on AMD64
