AMD64 Linux documentation

[Kjetil Mikkelborg]

Not that this will answer any of your questions, but :

Ive been running a IBM opteron based server as an fileserver/boot server
for around 6 clients in about a week now, and I actually has not noted
any problems at all.. Just installed the fedora amd64 port on it, and
wanted to test it before i downgrade it to regular fedora. But If this
stability continues, I will sure delay the downgrade as much as
possible! If I am lucky, This can even hold to fc1 amd64 comes out in a
!testing release :)

Pretty impressed.

tor, 11.12.2003 kl. 22.07 skrev Gene C.:
> Is there any documentation available for the AMD64 version of Fedora Core (or 
> RHEL for that matter)?  Yes, I have read the FAQ.
> 
> I am in the process of putting together a test system based on the AMD64 
> (actually an opteron since it is cheaper) and the motherboard will not arrive 
> until next week. So I thought I would try and do some research on AMD64 Linux 
> and how it is put together.  I am especially interested in how it supports 
> both 32 bit and 64 bit applications and how the file system (and other stuff) 
> will be configured to handle both 32 bit and 64 bit applications.  It might 
> also be nice to be able to have both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of some 
> applications installed at the same time (e.g., mozilla).
> 
> The only thing I could find for RHEL 3 is an Itanium and AMD64 Installation 
> Guide.  But, as far as I can see, it only talks about the Itanium with no 
> mention of the AMD64/Opteron.  The only thing I could find on debian is a 
> short HOWTO which basically comes down to ... install a 32 bit system and 
> then install a 64 bit kernel but do not install any 64 bit application 
> because they are not "stable".  Since Red Hat is marketing (and delivering) 
> RHEL 3 for the AMD64/Opteron, I suspect they have worked out a lot of 
> stability problems (through a lot of blood, sweat and tears on their part).
> 
> I also took a quick look at both SUSE and Mandrake but the most I could find 
> was some pitches for selling their AMD64 version which will be available RSN.
> 
> I also did some browsing of the packages available in the preview version.  
> >From what I could see there are a couple of new directory trees such as 
> /lib64 and /usr/lib64 which hold the 64 bit versions of libraries with the 32 
> bit version going into /lib and /usr/lib.  However, there are still conflicts 
> with between the 32 bit and 64 bit version of glibc (for example) -- 
> /usr/share/doc, /usr/sbin/ sbin/ and /etc which would (not easily) allow 
> concurrent installation.  I took a look at some of the packages in 
> taroon-amd64 and the same thing is true there.
> 
> I realize that this (Fedora Core for the AMD64) is a "work in progress" but I 
> am hoping for some information as to how these this will (are being) made to 
> work.  One of the great attractions of the AMD64 (at least to me) is the 
> ability to run "old" 32 bit applications at the same time (on the same 
> system) I am running 64 bit applications.  The AMD64 is very different from 
> the Itanium since I do not need to port and rebuild my 32 bit application ... 
> the only other hardware I am aware that has this dual mode (32 bit/64 bit) 
> capability is the Sun Sparc.
> 
> There is a little info (not much) on the amd64 mailing list but no real 
> discussion of how to resolve the package conflicts (other than using --force 
> which does not make sense to me).
> 
> OK, I am hoping that some of the folks at Red Hat (and perhaps others) have 
> given this some thought and have a strategy for this.