Fedora on an AMD Athlon 64 (3200+) machine

William W. Austin waustin at speakeasy.net
Sun Nov 19 14:21:46 UTC 2006


On 2006-11-18 20:09:43, Joel Gomberg <obligor11-fedora at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Timothy Murphy wrote:
>> 
>>> I have a Targa desktop with this processor,
>>> and I have always had problems installing Fedora x86_64 on it.
>> ...
(SNIP)
>> Yesterday I installed the i386 version on my Athlon 64 machine,
>> and it seems to run without any problems at all -
>> I compiled kernel-2.6.18.2 in a few seconds,
>> whereas trying to compile the same kernel under x86_64 caused
>> several
>> crashes during the compilation, and when it was complete
>> the kernel only ran for a few minutes before crashing.
>> (I had the experience trying to re-compile the latest Fedora
>> kernel.)
>> 
>> I suppose it is possible that these problems arise from some fault
>> in my computer, but it seems much more likely to be a software
>> problem.
>> 
>> So I'll ask again if anyone is happily running the x86_64 version of
>> FC-6
>> on an Athlon 64 machine?
> Yes.  I have an Athlon 64 (3200+), a Gigabyte motherboard, and an
> Nvidia nforce3 chipset.  I have run FC5 and upgraded to FC6 with
> excellent performance and absolutely no problems with the x86_64
> architecture.

Like the author, I have a Gigabyte MB (but with an AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2  
dual-core 4200+ processor).  I previously ran the x86_64 version under  
both fc5 and now run it under fc6. I can compile (and have compiled)  
x86_64 kernels and run with them with no problems. (although I do not  
use the xen kernel).

In fact, the ONLY real problems I have encountered relate to the lack  
of 64-bit drivers to play wmv and asx files (needed for work where some  
dope decided to send out presentations in .wmv format sometimes). (And  
yes, I have also installed the 32-bit libraries to play some of them so  
it's not a show-stopper by any means).

The speed advantages are great (compared to my previous Athlon xp2500+  
box), and the dual-core is a big help for some multi-threaded things.

Overall, like Joel Gomberg, I have had absolutely NO (detectable)  
problems with the x86_64 architecture.

Have you checked both the memory and drives on your machine - what you  
describe could be a problem with either.


-- 
william w. austin                               waustin at speakeasy.net
"life is just another phase i'm going through. this time, anyway ..."




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