Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 08:21:11PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (which is still unofficial). Ans as security is a severe problem on any server, I would recommend staying with Sarge/Stable and applying all security updates (which aren't available in Etch/Testing an Sid/Unstable). Etch now has security updates. -- Chris. == Reproduction if desired may be handled locally. -- rfc3 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
I'm considering buying a box and putting the AMD64 port of sarge on it. I can see lots of problems with the AMD64 port on the mailing list, but that doesn't make it clear whether troubles are normal or unusual. Very few happy users ever write in to say how happy they are, I have had it proposed to me that I might set up a server for my LAN (not the internet gateway) as a Sempron system running Linux. Specifically, an Asus K8V-MX Athlon 64 motherboard, an AMD Sempron64 2600, 512 meg DDR PC-3200 w/o ECC. to quote from the quotation. My question is, is the Debian AMD64 platform ready for such use? Presumably I'd be using the unofficial sarge release ... or has it become official in the meantime? Or is etch actually more reliable right now? The server will initially be running an NFS server that serves from a software RAID (hard disks presumably partitioned using LVM). I'm considering putting everybody's home directory on it so that they will have their bookmarks, configurations, etc. available whatever machine in the house they are actually sitting at. But if the are running on one of the substantially less powerful machines, they will use the Sempron remotely using XDMCP or VNC. Oh, yes. One or two of my users are collecting video files (mostly .mpg). Would accessing them from another machine using NFS (100 MHz ethernet) be fast enough for them to view them? Even if two users did it at the same time? (not from the legacy 100MHz pentium, though, of course). Any comments on whether this plan is feasible? Do others have good experiences with that motherboard? Or should I backtrack and specify an old reliable 32-bit Pentium instead? -- hendrik Please CC: me as I am not subscribed to this list -- although I will eventually see replies in the archives anyway, and will probably subscribe if I go ahead with the project. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
On Thursday 22 December 2005 14:34, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm considering buying a box and putting the AMD64 port of sarge on it. we're running a production server on it. not had much testing yet, i'l know within a month if its up to it :). its supported by the debian security team though. I can see lots of problems with the AMD64 port on the mailing list, but that doesn't make it clear whether troubles are normal or unusual. Very few happy users ever write in to say how happy they are, i'm one so far I have had it proposed to me that I might set up a server for my LAN (not the internet gateway) as a Sempron system running Linux. Specifically, an Asus K8V-MX Athlon 64 motherboard, an AMD Sempron64 2600, 512 meg DDR PC-3200 w/o ECC. to quote from the quotation. My question is, is the Debian AMD64 platform ready for such use? Presumably I'd be using the unofficial sarge release ... or has it become official in the meantime? Or is etch actually more reliable right now? i'm running it as a production webserver, i trust it. i wouldn't even have to think about running on a home lan. The server will initially be running an NFS server that serves from a software RAID (hard disks presumably partitioned using LVM). I'm considering putting everybody's home directory on it so that they will have their bookmarks, configurations, etc. available whatever machine in the house they are actually sitting at. But if the are running on one of the substantially less powerful machines, they will use the Sempron remotely using XDMCP or VNC. Oh, yes. One or two of my users are collecting video files (mostly .mpg). Would accessing them from another machine using NFS (100 MHz ethernet) be fast enough for them to view them? Even if two users did it at the same time? (not from the legacy 100MHz pentium, though, of course). software raid was nice and easy to setup. 100mbps ethernet is plenty fast enough for streaming a few reasonable mpegs at a time (mythtv is commonly used to stream multiple uncompressed/not much compressed DVB streams over 100mbps lan - i used to) Any comments on whether this plan is feasible? Do others have good experiences with that motherboard? Or should I backtrack and specify an old reliable 32-bit Pentium instead? no idea about the hardware. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 09:34:29AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm considering buying a box and putting the AMD64 port of sarge on it. I can see lots of problems with the AMD64 port on the mailing list, but that doesn't make it clear whether troubles are normal or unusual. Very few happy users ever write in to say how happy they are, I have had it proposed to me that I might set up a server for my LAN (not the internet gateway) as a Sempron system running Linux. Specifically, an Asus K8V-MX Athlon 64 motherboard, an AMD Sempron64 2600, 512 meg DDR PC-3200 w/o ECC. to quote from the quotation. My question is, is the Debian AMD64 platform ready for such use? Presumably I'd be using the unofficial sarge release ... or has it become official in the meantime? Or is etch actually more reliable right now? The amd64 distribution for the most part works perfectly. The reason you see many problems is that amd64 systems are constantly coming out in new versions, while i386 systems are pretty much history as far as new systems are concerned. The people with these new amd64 systems have the same install problems on i386 as they do with amd64 since it is just a matter of new hardware not being supported fully by the kernel on the installer. There are also a few issues with some programs that are sloppily written or tried to use clever optimizations which are not 64bit clean. Things such as openoffice.org, and a few other programs fall into this category. Of course things that require binary only code (win32 codecs for example for playing back some videos) don't work in 64bit. Those have to run in a 32bit chroot instead. Not usually a big deal, and if you don't intend to watch videos without open codecs, then no problem. Of course you do have the option of just running i386 debian on the system and it will still be very fast. The majority of programs don't gain that much performance going 64bit. It is a trade off. The server will initially be running an NFS server that serves from a software RAID (hard disks presumably partitioned using LVM). I'm considering putting everybody's home directory on it so that they will have their bookmarks, configurations, etc. available whatever machine in the house they are actually sitting at. But if the are running on one of the substantially less powerful machines, they will use the Sempron remotely using XDMCP or VNC. Oh, yes. One or two of my users are collecting video files (mostly .mpg). Would accessing them from another machine using NFS (100 MHz ethernet) be fast enough for them to view them? Even if two users did it at the same time? (not from the legacy 100MHz pentium, though, of course). 100Mbit ethernet should be fine for that, although if you have multiple users using xdmcp or vnc, then you might want to consider using a switch with a gigabit port for the server, at least if they do graphics intensive things. If they don't, well then 100Mbit should be plenty. A lot of boards come with gigabit ethernet onboard, so the only issue is whether a switch would have it. Also for multiple xdmcp/vnc users you really want to have more than 512M ram. 1GB would me a lot better and cost very little extra. Any comments on whether this plan is feasible? Do others have good experiences with that motherboard? Or should I backtrack and specify an old reliable 32-bit Pentium instead? Well I use the Asus A8V Deluxe which is essentially the socket 939 version of the board, with some extra features thrown in, and of course more PCI slots. Works great. Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
On Thursday 22 December 2005 15:34, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm considering buying a box and putting the AMD64 port of sarge on it. I can see lots of problems with the AMD64 port on the mailing list, but that doesn't make it clear whether troubles are normal or unusual. Very few happy users ever write in to say how happy they are, Ok, I am very happy with my Debian SargeAMD64 system. And most of the troubles you have heard of are probably connected with getting everything working. Sarge AMD64 itself is rock stable on my system, however, the setup with an 32bit chroot is not as easy as the setup of a 32bit debian. The only real problem I met with was the 2.6.8 kernel in Sarge, which had trouble with the USB on the ASUS A8V Deluxe mainboard. So I switched to the 2.6.12 Etch kernel - and everything went smoothly. I have had it proposed to me that I might set up a server for my LAN (not the internet gateway) as a Sempron system running Linux. Specifically, an Asus K8V-MX Athlon 64 motherboard, an AMD Sempron64 2600, 512 meg DDR PC-3200 w/o ECC. to quote from the quotation. My question is, is the Debian AMD64 platform ready for such use? Presumably I'd be using the unofficial sarge release ... or has it become official in the meantime? Or is etch actually more reliable right now? It is indeed ready for use. However, it depends on your demands. I would suggest looking up if the applications you need are available in the AMD64 port. If not, on a server I would personally stay with the 32bit Sarge. Considering your listing, I would believe everything is in thze AMD64 port (which is still unofficial). Ans as security is a severe problem on any server, I would recommend staying with Sarge/Stable and applying all security updates (which aren't available in Etch/Testing an Sid/Unstable). The server will initially be running an NFS server that serves from a software RAID (hard disks presumably partitioned using LVM). I'm considering putting everybody's home directory on it so that they will have their bookmarks, configurations, etc. available whatever machine in the house they are actually sitting at. But if the are running on one of the substantially less powerful machines, they will use the Sempron remotely using XDMCP or VNC. Oh, yes. One or two of my users are collecting video files (mostly .mpg). Would accessing them from another machine using NFS (100 MHz ethernet) be fast enough for them to view them? Even if two users did it at the same time? (not from the legacy 100MHz pentium, though, of course). Any comments on whether this plan is feasible? Do others have good experiences with that motherboard? Or should I backtrack and specify an old reliable 32-bit Pentium instead? You don't have to ga back to an 32bit CPU - just install the standard 32bit Sarge on an AMD64! It runs withpout any problem, and its only marginally slower than the AMD64 port. -- hendrik Please CC: me as I am not subscribed to this list -- although I will eventually see replies in the archives anyway, and will probably subscribe if I go ahead with the project. -- Clemens Bergmann Schwertlilienweg 14 68259 Mannheim [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Is the AMD-64 ready for reliable use? (possibly on K8V-MX moptherboard)]
On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 02:20:56PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote: On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 09:34:29AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm considering buying a box and putting the AMD64 port of sarge on it. I can see lots of problems with the AMD64 port on the mailing list, but that doesn't make it clear whether troubles are normal or unusual. Very few happy users ever write in to say how happy they are, I have had it proposed to me that I might set up a server for my LAN (not the internet gateway) as a Sempron system running Linux. Specifically, an Asus K8V-MX Athlon 64 motherboard, an AMD Sempron64 2600, 512 meg DDR PC-3200 w/o ECC. to quote from the quotation. My question is, is the Debian AMD64 platform ready for such use? Presumably I'd be using the unofficial sarge release ... or has it become official in the meantime? Or is etch actually more reliable right now? The amd64 distribution for the most part works perfectly. The reason you see many problems is that amd64 systems are constantly coming out in new versions, while i386 systems are pretty much history as far as new systems are concerned. The people with these new amd64 systems have the same install problems on i386 as they do with amd64 since it is just a matter of new hardware not being supported fully by the kernel on the installer. There are also a few issues with some programs that are sloppily written or tried to use clever optimizations which are not 64bit clean. Things such as openoffice.org, and a few other programs fall into this category. Of course things that require binary only code (win32 codecs for example for playing back some videos) don't work in 64bit. Those have to run in a 32bit chroot instead. Not usually a big deal, and if you don't intend to watch videos without open codecs, then no problem. I've heard that with the 64-bit kernel you can run 32- and 64-bit code mixed -- although presumably not within a single executable image. How are the shared libraries organised so that each executable gets its own kind of libraries? Wouldn't there be trouble with mname collisions and the like? -- hendrik Of course you do have the option of just running i386 debian on the system and it will still be very fast. The majority of programs don't gain that much performance going 64bit. It is a trade off. I'm writing software which will have to go 64-bit on 64-bit platforms. If for no other reason, I'll have to run it in 64-bit mode to test their 64-bit cleanness. -- hendrik The server will initially be running an NFS server that serves from a software RAID (hard disks presumably partitioned using LVM). I'm considering putting everybody's home directory on it so that they will have their bookmarks, configurations, etc. available whatever machine in the house they are actually sitting at. But if the are running on one of the substantially less powerful machines, they will use the Sempron remotely using XDMCP or VNC. Oh, yes. One or two of my users are collecting video files (mostly .mpg). Would accessing them from another machine using NFS (100 MHz ethernet) be fast enough for them to view them? Even if two users did it at the same time? (not from the legacy 100MHz pentium, though, of course). 100Mbit ethernet should be fine for that, although if you have multiple users using xdmcp or vnc, then you might want to consider using a switch with a gigabit port for the server, at least if they do graphics intensive things. If they don't, well then 100Mbit should be plenty. A lot of boards come with gigabit ethernet onboard, so the only issue is whether a switch would have it. Also for multiple xdmcp/vnc users you really want to have more than 512M ram. 1GB would me a lot better and cost very little extra. Any comments on whether this plan is feasible? Do others have good experiences with that motherboard? Or should I backtrack and specify an old reliable 32-bit Pentium instead? Well I use the Asus A8V Deluxe which is essentially the socket 939 version of the board, with some extra features thrown in, and of course more PCI slots. Works great. Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
