FC5 32 bit or 64 bit

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Gene Heskett <gene.heskett at verizon.net>

[It is best to trim quotes: remove things that don't relate to your
response.]

| On Sunday 23 April 2006 14:17, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:

| >There has been some recent success in creating a native Linux driver
| >for Broadcom 802.11g controllers.
| >  http://bcm43xx.berlios.de
| 
| This one is interesting as I'm currently running the windows drivers 
| under ndiswrapper, and its working fine.  But I would like to be able 
| to junk the ndiswrapper thing if I could.

On this list, there were some more useful comments about this driver.
Here's what appears to be the most useful message in that thread:
  https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2006-April/msg05369.html
Apparently it is included in FC5 but you need to get bcm43xx-fwcutter
from livna and use it to get a copy of the firmware.  I infer that the
firmware is not open source so Fedora does not include it in the
distribution.

I see you were part of that thread, so this is old news to you.

If you have only 4 days, this is probably not a good use of your time.

| ... here is my conundrum:  When I try to install the x86-64 
| from the dvd on an HP lappy with an AMD64 Turion in it, the 
| installation takes a dump right after formatting the partitions because 
| it cannot find setup-2.5.49 on the dvd.  I tried twice, with two 
| diferent dvd, on a +R and one a -R.  Now I just looked at the dvd, and 
| I was able to unpack and view the contents of this file with mc with no 
| problems.
| 
| So the $32k question is what happened?  Do I need to add more options to 
| the boot line in order for it to work?  I'm currently booting the x86 
| install using "irqpoll noapic nopapci pci=assign-busses lapic".

Sounds bad.  What you have looks to be a symptom, not the disease.  So
what's the disease???  Perhaps even too many kernel flags -- they are
not all harmless.

After a certain point in the install, several of the consoles are
going in the background and may have useful info for debugging.  Have
a look (CNTRL-ALT-F1, CNTRL-ALT-F2, etc).

Very many laptops are tricky.  Maybe all of them.  It is best to find
a community (mailing list, for example) of others inflicted with the
same family of laptops.  That way you can share knowledge painfully
gained.  I, for example, have an HP Pavilion zv5000z.  I find the
mailing list
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxr3000 and
wiki http://prinsig.se/weekee useful.  This family may or may not be
include your particular laptop.

| Or is there a way to convert an x86 install to an x86-64 install on the 
| fly?

No, there is no reasonable way.

|  I'd hate to have to redo all the customization I've put into this 
| at this late date when I have only about 4 days to do it in.

Don't do it!  You probably have way better things to do with the
remaining 4 days.