On 6/16/06, James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hello,
I've seen snipits of various issues related to running gentoo on a 64 bit
amd processor. In particular, I'd like to get a 'low power'
chip such as the Turion in a portable. One of my concerns is whether to use
32 bit or 64 bit Gentoo on a 64 bit AMD portable. Is there
a document I can read somewhere that explains the merits
and problems on how to set up Gentoo on a 64 bit machine?
If not can somebody explain the caveats of 64 bit (amd) gentoo?
I do not wish to be on the 'bleeding edge' of 64 bit AMD issues,
but, I'd like to access the power. I'm running a variety of
32 bit stable gentoo systems now, with relative ease.
Another problem I run into is that I must have a 9 pin serial port
(you know with a 16x50+ chip). I use my portables to talk to
a wide variety of industrial equipment that all use standard 9 pin
serial ports. I know that there are pci cards to give mult serial ports
and usb-serial converter devices, but I have never used any of them
so I need recommendations on alternative serial (rs232C) hardware.
This limits me pretty much to Clevo based portables, unless
somebody else can point me to a 64 bit AMD portable with
9 pin serials ports, or a hardware alternative that is robust.
Any information/recommendations on 64 bit amd portables in most
welcome.
I've been *extremely* happy with my xtremenotebooks.com system - it's
based on a Clevo (as is the Alienware equivalent), and it was about a
$1000 cheaper than the Alienware equivalent. I went with the desktop
replacement strategy - AMD 64X2 4400+, GeForce 7800 Go GTX, etc - but
xtremenotebooks.com also has Turion64-based systems for the more
mobility minded - i.e. those that don't want to lug around a 14 lb
"portable". ;)
I've been running full 64-bit on the system, and it's been *really*
straightforward - I haven't found a *single* show-stopper (now that
the RaLink rt2500 wireless driver is SMP-compatible, that is) - the
only real minor annoyances I've had are that Flash won't work in the
64-bit (i.e. self-compiled) Firefox - darn, I sure miss all those
"Punch the Monkey and win an iPod!" ads (however, I'm told this can be
gotten around via either some clever 32-bit Flash plugin + 64-bit
Konqueror sleight of hand, or by using the 32-bit firefox-bin instead
of the self-compiled), and the fact that, oddly enough, win32codecs
don't want to work in a 64-bit system either (which can be gotten
around via the mplayer-bin package - another pre-compiled 32-bit
version).
And, of course, the most important thing - I can't stop just wallowing
gleefully in my friends and relatives envious looks when I walk up
with a laptop that is more powerful than their most powerful gaming
and server systems... :) (With only *slightly* less battery life than
a good desktop with no UPS... <grin> (Actually, I can get about 2
hours if I'm careful)).
The ACPI functionality all seems to work quite well, saving
suspend/hibernate, which I haven't really pursued due to my usage of
the proprietary NVidia drivers + the fact that the rt2500 driver
doesn't seem to play well with power management, but I would bet that
if you unloaded both those modules and did a suspend or a hibernate,
it would go well for you.
So, overall, as far as Gentoo + AMD64 goes, my experience has pretty
much been no different than Gentoo + x86 - a good one!
HTH-
James
James
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