[solved] distro with most 64-bit packages?

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

I'm about to buy an i64 system and I'm thinking about which distro to use. For this particular box, my requirement is "the distro with the most number of packages". I don't care if they run fully optimized or if the distro is fully configurable. I'm looking for lots of packages so that I don't have to download manually the source, compile, install, manually update, etc.

Now I'm asking here rather than checking official numbers, because I need a somehow subjective opinion based on unofficial repositories as well. I don't mind using 3rd party repos, but I want that the packages update automatically. For example, in Gentoo this would mean that adding an overlay with layman would be acceptable, downloading an ebuild from bugzilla no. In Ubuntu, adding a repo in the source file would be fine, downloading a deb package no.

So which distro has the largest collection of i64 packages, either from official or 3rd party repos?
Thanks a lot

EDIT: edit subject based confusion between amd64 and Itanium archs

Jake · Veteran Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 1127

What's i64? If you mean amd64/x86_64/em64t/x64, then Gentoo, Ubuntu, and numerous others support most of the packages supported on x86/i386/ia32 in native 64-bit, and most of the rest in 32-bit compatibility. If you mean ia64/itanium, I have no idea.

mark_alec · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:

For Itanium, stick with Gentoo, Debian or FreeBSD. Not sure of number of packages each support though.
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Thanks for the feedback and I'm sorry guys for not making myself clear. I've meant amd64/amd64/x86_64. In other words Core 2 duo and Athlon64. I didn't mean the Itanium architecture.

I'd like to stick to Linux rather than BSD, mostly due to HW (scanners, webcams, new sound cards) and filesystem compatibility. The main reason for my question was the fact that I'd like this box to be very very easy to maintain. And downloading new ebuilds from bugzilla, new AUR packages from Arch, or individual deb packages from Debian/Ubuntu is not that convenient. This might be fine for one package that doesn't get updated too often, but many great packages are only available in Bugzilla and this is a pain to maintain. With Archlinux the you also need to pull stuff from AUR the whole time.
Thanks again

codergeek42 · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:18 am Post subject:

Fedora has full 64bit support, minus some packages that simply don't build cleanly (some games like warzone2100) and utilities that are specific to other arches (such as Yaboot).

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-Rick- · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 1:13 pm Post subject:

I'm using OpenSUSE as 64 bit distro. Can't tell if it has more packages than other distros, but it has quite a few of them. Plus you can always add extra repositories.
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Jake · Veteran Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 1127

My Athlon64 desktop has been happily running ~amd64 for the last 3 1/2 years or so. Back when I installed, so much stuff was ~arch that I figured going straight ~amd64 was easier than having a package.keywords a mile long, but these days I think all the common packages have a stable version. I run a binary firefox to avoid hassles with flash, so I have the emul packages for that and the occasional binary-only package. Otherwise it works like x86 where hardware permits.

My Athlon64 x2 fileserver runs SolarisExpress, which also works well in 64-bit, although Sun takes the same approach as with sparc64 by making most of the userland 32-bit.

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Besides being hable to have more than 4G of RAM (actually less due to the PCI shadow and so on), is there any other major difference that I should consider for maybe using x86? Otherwise I think I'll try Fedora.

This is a machine that I would like to be as bleeding edge as possible, without crashing. Something like FreeBSD unstable in terms of this. So not as bleeding as ~arch in Gentoo, but a bit more stable (I mean less compile errors). And then amd64, with automatic upgrades. I'll give Fedora a shot, it would be first time. I know I'll probably end up installing Gentoo there after a few months anyway

thanks for all your feedback

xerxian · Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:00 am Post subject:

Havent had any trouble with any packages on either gentoo 64bit or kubuntu 64bit.

Even have 64bit swiftweasel/firefox working with flash 64bit (out of the box on gutsy)
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mdeininger · Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:34 am Post subject:

well, gentoo works perfectly fine here on amd64 (with a rather long package.keywords). i even put it on my server like that.

btw, amd64 is very handy since you get access to a lot more registers on that hardware, the lack of which is one thing that is extremely annoying on x86. the added registers tend to help a bit performance-wise (although the increased pointer size obviously makes apps use somewhat more ram).
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alistair · Developer Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 798

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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

mdeininger · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:12 am Post subject:

rokstar83 · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:40 pm Post subject: