[Cooker] Doubt: x86_64 or i586?

[Luiz Alberto Saba]

Hi Guys

For an Intel quad-core with 4GB of ram should I use i586 or x86_64?

Thanks

Luiz Alberto Saba

[Frederik Himpe]

On Friday 08 August 2008 14:47:23 Luiz Alberto Saba wrote:
> Hi Guys
>
> For an Intel quad-core with 4GB of ram should I use i586 or x86_64?

Lots of info on Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=x86_64+i586+difference+linux

I'd choose for x86_64, but both should work.

--
Frederik Himpe

[Luiz Alberto Saba]

Frederik Himpe escreveu:

On Friday 08 August 2008 14:47:23 Luiz Alberto Saba wrote:
  

Hi Guys

For an Intel quad-core with 4GB of ram should I use i586 or x86_64?
    

Lots of info on Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=x86_64+i586+difference+linux

I'd choose for x86_64, but both should work.

No doubt that it works. I'm using i586 and it's all working.

But... I'm loosing something for not using x86_64?
The installer program couldn't tip the user about the more appropriate arch for the machine?

[Olivier Thauvin-2]

Le vendredi 08 août 2008, Luiz Alberto Saba a écrit :

Please, avoid HTML mail, thanks.

> No doubt that it works. I'm using i586 and it's all working.
>  But... I'm loosing something for not using x86_64?
>  The installer program couldn't tip the user about the more appropriate
> arch for the machine?

If user have more than 4GB of RAM, he will just not be able to run application
needing more than 4GB of RAM per process.

Honestly, developers, sys admin and SGDB administrator can notice a
performance difference, especially if they need 64bits numerics values. But
theses people are normally able to do the good choice about the distro
architecture.
Otherwise, normals users will never notice anything (and highter than 4GB  of
RAM computers are not yet so common).

[Liam R E Quin]

On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 16:49 +0200, Olivier Thauvin wrote:
[...]
> Honestly, developers, sys admin and SGDB administrator can notice a
> performance difference, especially if they need 64bits numerics values. But
> theses people are normally able to do the good choice about the distro
> architecture.

With the total absence of clear information from Mandriva, even
developers have problems.  The installer didn't prompt me with my
dual Intel Core Duo 2 system (which can run 64bit) so i assumed it
was happily installing 2008.1 for 64-bit, but I see no sign that it
has done so.  And I had to ask Mandriva support which of Free and One
supported 64 bit because the idiots forgot to mention it on their
Web site (and point to a Wiki page last modified in 2006, it's a
fucking nightmare trying to work out what's included in what).

So I'd say, good luck, if you can figure out how to install 64 bit
let me know.

Liam (on a 32-bit 2008.1)

--
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

[Gustavo De Nardin (spuk)]

* Liam R E Quin <liam@...> [2008-08-08 12:34 -0400]:

> On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 16:49 +0200, Olivier Thauvin wrote:
> [...]
> > Honestly, developers, sys admin and SGDB administrator can notice a
> > performance difference, especially if they need 64bits numerics values. But
> > theses people are normally able to do the good choice about the distro
> > architecture.
>
> With the total absence of clear information from Mandriva, even
> developers have problems.  The installer didn't prompt me with my
> dual Intel Core Duo 2 system (which can run 64bit) so i assumed it
> was happily installing 2008.1 for 64-bit, but I see no sign that it
> has done so.  And I had to ask Mandriva support which of Free and One
> supported 64 bit because the idiots forgot to mention it on their

The isos include the arch in their names:
mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-KDE-int-cdrom-i586.iso
mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-GNOME-int-cdrom-i586.iso
mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-dvd-i586.iso
mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-dvd-x86_64.iso

The only one dual arch is the mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-mini-dual.iso.

> Web site (and point to a Wiki page last modified in 2006, it's a
> fucking nightmare trying to work out what's included in what).
>
> So I'd say, good luck, if you can figure out how to install 64 bit
> let me know.
>
> Liam (on a 32-bit 2008.1)
>
> --
> Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
> Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
> Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
>

[Olivier Blin-2]

Liam R E Quin <liam@...> writes:

> On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 16:49 +0200, Olivier Thauvin wrote:
> [...]
>> Honestly, developers, sys admin and SGDB administrator can notice a
>> performance difference, especially if they need 64bits numerics values. But
>> theses people are normally able to do the good choice about the distro
>> architecture.
>
> With the total absence of clear information from Mandriva, even
> developers have problems.  The installer didn't prompt me with my
> dual Intel Core Duo 2 system (which can run 64bit) so i assumed it
> was happily installing 2008.1 for 64-bit

Arch can be chosen at the bootloader step of the installer (first
screen, handled by gfxboot)
It defaults to 64 bits for systems supporting it.

--
Olivier Blin (blino) - Mandriva

[Liam R E Quin]

On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 15:01 -0300, Gustavo De Nardin (spuk) wrote:

> The isos include the arch in their names:
> mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-KDE-int-cdrom-i586.iso
> mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-GNOME-int-cdrom-i586.iso
> mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-dvd-i586.iso
> mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-dvd-x86_64.iso
>
> The only one dual arch is the mandriva-linux-free-2008-spring-mini-dual.iso.

Which doesn't have the arch in its name, and is what I thought i'd
installed... not least because I couldn't find the 64 iso on
any mirrors when I looked.

However, the Web pages don't in fact say this (or didn't).

If you make it hard to work out how to choose from your products,
people will choose someone else's products, Mr Mandriva :-)

Liam

--
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

[Liam R E Quin]

On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 21:22 +0200, Olivier Blin wrote:
> Liam R E Quin <liam@...> writes:
[...]
> Arch can be chosen at the bootloader step of the installer (first
> screen, handled by gfxboot)
> It defaults to 64 bits for systems supporting it.

That may be true, if you download the right thing.

If I go to
http://www.mandriva.com/
I see links to download One, or powerpack, or to by flash.
There's no mention of Free or 2008.1.

Well, OK, maybe Free isn't supported, only One.

So I click on the One download button, and still no indication of
whether it's for a PowerMac, Sparc, Intel, or what.

But it does now say Linux One 2008 Spring
And oh look, the URL is
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free
so maybe One and free are the same thing?

No, I knwo they aren't, but mandriva's web site is too fucked
up for anyone to guess this.

(on the left of that page is a box, navigation * Home, where Home
takes you to http://www.mandriva.com/en/oem_home
with "You are not authorized to access this page". Hmm.

Let's go back to Mandriva.com, maybe we missed something.

Ah, here are some links under Help.  let's try them.
Knowledge Base might help us.
It goes to
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/view/KB/
which (at the bottom) mentions it was last modified
on 12th October 2007 by Arkub.  Hmm, so not much on
2008.1 Free there.  But there's a link to Installation,
so i try that.

And now I do get to,
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/view/KB/InstallIndex#HChoiceofinstallationmediaforyourprocessor
The versions marked "x86_64" are for PC's with recent 64 bit processors

OK, so now I'm getting somewhere.  I follow the link to download by ftp,
since bittorrent doesn't work here.

And I get to
ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/MandrivaLinux/official/iso/2008.1/
(before, I used the mirror list and went to a mirror in Canada), and now
there are indeed files marked x85_64.

But wait, rememner that I got here by looking at Mandriva One.
There's no mandriva One with a 64-bit label here.  There's something
called Free, but that is not mentioned on the Mandriva Web pages.
Should I trust it?

Maybe to anyone at Mandriva this is all obvious, but I didn't find it
obvious.  In the end I used a "Free" dvd from the cover of a magazine,
having been incorrectly told by mandriva support that Free was dual
architecture.  I only get 10 gigabytes per month, so no downloading any
more DVD images for me until September, at which point it probably won't
be Spring any more :-) (which is part of why in the past I have bought
the powerpack, but from what you and others have said the powerpack
edition is obviously 32-bit only).

A comparison, let's see how hard it is to work out what to download
with Ubuntu, or Red Hat, and see if you have to download something
that's not a supported product, that's not even mentioned in their
list of products, and where there's not even a readme explaining what
the files are for?

Well, at ubuntu.com I click Get Ubuntu.
then I'm asked, what type of computer do you have, and
which release do you want (desktop or server). OK, I can handle
that for now.

And then it gives me a list of mirrors, I choose a country and
the download starts.

Easy, and they kept me informed, no guessing.

OK, I try www.fedora.com. It's a portal site for spam, oops.

Then I find www.fedoraproject.org.

Click on Get Fedora.
There's a list of Install media, and guess what,
it clearly marks i386, x86_64 and ppc

So I don't think my frustration with Mandriva is
unjustified.  Yes, make things simple, but not so
simple that there are no longer any roadsigns.

Liam

--
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

[roudoudou]

On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 10:06 PM, Liam R E Quin <liam@...> wrote:
(...)
> So I don't think my frustration with Mandriva is
> unjustified.  Yes, make things simple, but not so
> simple that there are no longer any roadsigns.
>
I found this bug report on this issue
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=42087 and added a link to your
post there.

HTH,
Thanks.

[Liam R E Quin]

On Sat, 2008-08-09 at 14:40 +0200, roudoudou wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 10:06 PM, Liam R E Quin <liam@...> wrote:
> (...)
> > So I don't think my frustration with Mandriva is
> > unjustified.  Yes, make things simple, but not so
> > simple that there are no longer any roadsigns.
> >
> I found this bug report on this issue
> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=42087 and added a link to your
> post there.

Yes, thanks for doing that.

Liam

--
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

[Fabrice FACORAT]

2008/8/8 Olivier Thauvin <nanardon@...>:

> Le vendredi 08 août 2008, Luiz Alberto Saba a écrit :
>
> Please, avoid HTML mail, thanks.
>
>> No doubt that it works. I'm using i586 and it's all working.
>>  But... I'm loosing something for not using x86_64?
>>  The installer program couldn't tip the user about the more appropriate
>> arch for the machine?
>
> If user have more than 4GB of RAM, he will just not be able to run application
> needing more than 4GB of RAM per process.

> Otherwise, normals users will never notice anything (and highter than 4GB  of
> RAM computers are not yet so common).

sure, but they will be common shortly IMHO.
New computers have at least 2 GB of RAM for Vista, and many have 3 GB.
There are notebook with 4GB of RAM, 1To HD ( Asus ).



--
Close the World, Open the Net
http://www.linux-wizard.net

[Olivier Blin-2]

Liam R E Quin <liam@...> writes:

> On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 21:22 +0200, Olivier Blin wrote:
>> Liam R E Quin <liam@...> writes:
> [...]
>> Arch can be chosen at the bootloader step of the installer (first
>> screen, handled by gfxboot)
>> It defaults to 64 bits for systems supporting it.
>
> That may be true, if you download the right thing.
>
> If I go to
> http://www.mandriva.com/
> I see links to download One, or powerpack, or to by flash.
> There's no mention of Free or 2008.1.

It's just not on the front page. Click the Download link from the
front page, you'll be able to select Free

--
Olivier Blin (blino) - Mandriva

On Friday 08 August 2008 18:34:10 Liam R E Quin wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 16:49 +0200, Olivier Thauvin wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Honestly, developers, sys admin and SGDB administrator can notice a
> > performance difference, especially if they need 64bits numerics values.
> > But theses people are normally able to do the good choice about the
> > distro architecture.
>
> With the total absence of clear information from Mandriva, even
> developers have problems.  The installer didn't prompt me with my
> dual Intel Core Duo 2 system (which can run 64bit) so i assumed it
> was happily installing 2008.1 for 64-bit, but I see no sign that it
> has done so.  And I had to ask Mandriva support which of Free and One
> supported 64 bit because the idiots forgot to mention it on their
> Web site (and point to a Wiki page last modified in 2006, it's a
> fucking nightmare trying to work out what's included in what).
>
> So I'd say, good luck, if you can figure out how to install 64 bit
> let me know.

????

I've been running x86_64 on my opteron workstations since 2006.0, if you can't
figure it out from the name of the ISO image, maybe it's best you stick with
32bit :-P.

And, the One CD is intended to work on as many systems as possible, so the
default is always going to be a 32bit distro ...

Now, the fact that the download page by default gives you One, that's the real
problem (it should make it much more obvious how to get the installer CDs
too).

Regards,
Buchan

[Olivier Blin-2]

Buchan Milne <bgmilne@...> writes:

> And, the One CD is intended to work on as many systems as possible, so the
> default is always going to be a 32bit distro ...
>
> Now, the fact that the download page by default gives you One, that's the real
> problem (it should make it much more obvious how to get the installer CDs
> too).

Is this not obvious enough?
http://mandriva.com/en/download

--
Olivier Blin (blino) - Mandriva

[Éric Piel]

Olivier Blin schreef:

> Buchan Milne <bgmilne@...> writes:
>
>> And, the One CD is intended to work on as many systems as possible, so the
>> default is always going to be a 32bit distro ...
>>
>> Now, the fact that the download page by default gives you One, that's the real
>> problem (it should make it much more obvious how to get the installer CDs
>> too).
>
> Is this not obvious enough?
> http://mandriva.com/en/download
>

Indeed, on this page it's not very clear the differences between Free

and One. More exactly, if you read it you get the impression that the
only difference is that Free doesn't contain proprietary packages. It
would be good to add a small link "More about the different versions of
Mandriva" going to
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Choosing_the_right_edition

Otherwise, the fact that One is only 32bits, that it's a live CD and
that there is no DVD is completely ignored.

Eric

[E_A_B_Piel.vcf]

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---

[Amrein-Marie Christophe]

Le lundi 11 août 2008 à 16:28 +0200, Eric Piel a écrit :

Olivier Blin schreef:
> Buchan Milne <bgmilne@...> writes:
> 
>> And, the One CD is intended to work on as many systems as possible, so the 
>> default is always going to be a 32bit distro ...
>>
>> Now, the fact that the download page by default gives you One, that's the real 
>> problem (it should make it much more obvious how to get the installer CDs 
>> too).
> 
> Is this not obvious enough?
> http://mandriva.com/en/download
> 
Indeed, on this page it's not very clear the differences between Free 
and One. More exactly, if you read it you get the impression that the 
only difference is that Free doesn't contain proprietary packages. It 
would be good to add a small link "More about the different versions of 
Mandriva" going to 
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Choosing_the_right_edition

Otherwise, the fact that One is only 32bits, that it's a live CD and 
that there is no DVD is completely ignored.

Eric

Download the latest Mandriva Linux release

* Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring - 32bits life CD edition - Recommended: contains all drivers and common plugins

* Mandriva Linux Free 2008 Spring - 32bits & 64bits edition - The "purely" Free Software edition  (See why you should care about Free Software) Warning: does not contain any proprietary drivers or software


Better ?

[Gustavo De Nardin (spuk)]

* Amrein-Marie Christophe <camreinmarie@...> [2008-08-11 16:42 +0200]:

> Le lundi 11 août 2008 à 16:28 +0200, Eric Piel a écrit :
>
> > Olivier Blin schreef:
> > > Buchan Milne <bgmilne@...> writes:
> > >
> > >> And, the One CD is intended to work on as many systems as possible, so the
> > >> default is always going to be a 32bit distro ...
> > >>
> > >> Now, the fact that the download page by default gives you One, that's the real
> > >> problem (it should make it much more obvious how to get the installer CDs
> > >> too).
> > >
> > > Is this not obvious enough?
> > > http://mandriva.com/en/download
> > >
> > Indeed, on this page it's not very clear the differences between Free
> > and One. More exactly, if you read it you get the impression that the
> > only difference is that Free doesn't contain proprietary packages. It
> > would be good to add a small link "More about the different versions of
> > Mandriva" going to
> > http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Choosing_the_right_edition
> >
> > Otherwise, the fact that One is only 32bits, that it's a live CD and
> > that there is no DVD is completely ignored.
> >
> > Eric
>
>
> Download the latest Mandriva Linux release
>
> * Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring - 32bits life CD edition - Recommended:
> contains all drivers and common plugins
>
> * Mandriva Linux Free 2008 Spring - 32bits & 64bits edition - The

I'd think 'or' is better than 'and' here.


> "purely" Free Software edition  (See why you should care about Free
> Software) Warning: does not contain any proprietary drivers or software
>
>
> Better ?

[Éric Piel]

Amrein-Marie Christophe schreef:

>
> *Download the latest Mandriva Linux release*
>
> *** Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring - 32bits life CD edition -*
                                               ^^^^
                                               live
> */Recommended/: contains all drivers and common plugins
>
> *** Mandriva Linux Free 2008 Spring - 32bits & 64bits edition - The
> "purely" Free Software edition  (/See why you should care about Free
> Software <http://mandriva.com/en/community/free-software>/) *Warning:
> *does not contain any proprietary drivers or software
>
>
> Better ?
Yep

Eric

[E_A_B_Piel.vcf]

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---

[Adam Williamson-4]

On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 16:54 +0200, Eric Piel wrote:

> Amrein-Marie Christophe schreef:
>
> >
> > *Download the latest Mandriva Linux release*
> >
> > *** Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring - 32bits life CD edition -*
>                                                ^^^^
>                                                live
> > */Recommended/: contains all drivers and common plugins
> >
> > *** Mandriva Linux Free 2008 Spring - 32bits & 64bits edition - The
> > "purely" Free Software edition  (/See why you should care about Free
> > Software <http://mandriva.com/en/community/free-software>/) *Warning:
> > *does not contain any proprietary drivers or software
> >
> >
> > Better ?

> Yep

The reason things are the way they are is a dbarth philosophy: he wanted
One to be the version almost everyone used. Originally the page was not
going to mention Free at all. Just for information.

The problem with starting to introduce jargon like 32-bit, 64-bit and
"live CD" is it confuses people who don't know what it means. But it
still may be worthwhile. However, it's also worth bearing in mind we
currently have another group of people saying the page should
"obviously" make available both the KDE and GNOME versions of One, and
another group saying it should "obviously" make the other language
versions of One more prominent. If we start doing everything someone
thinks is obvious, we wind up with a mess like the old download page
(the reason we went with a simple download page for this iteration of
mandriva.com is quite simple: we had a stat showing that onlt 33% of the
people who visited the old download page actually got around to
*downloading* anything, there was so much explanation to wade through.
--
adamw