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Thierry de Coulon wrote: |
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> Hello all, |
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> |
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> I have been a Linux user for over five years - mostly using SuSE first, then |
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> Debian based distributions, but from time to time "toying" with Gentoo. |
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> |
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> Now I'm in the process of building an Opteron based machine and decided it |
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> would be a good idea to build a Gentoo-amd64 distribution. |
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> |
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> I've googled quite a bit but I would still like to ask a few questions, such |
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> as: |
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> - are there special points I should pay attention to or can I simply follow |
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> the amd64 install instruction? |
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> - As far as I understand there are still lots of programs that won't compile |
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> in 64 bit. What will happen if I try to emerge such a program? |
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> - it seems most of the multimedia codecs still are 32 bit. Can you use these |
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> on a 64 bit distro? |
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> - other 64 bit distributions (I've downloaded SuSE and Kubuntu) will allready |
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> have dealt with most compatibility problems. Should I learn more about 64 bit |
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> specificities before attempting to build a Gentoo-64 system? |
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> |
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> Thanks for any advice. |
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> |
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> Thierry |
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> |
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|
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I've been using Gentoo on an amd64 machine for about 2 years now. The amd64 |
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should include the same steps you'd need for the Opteron; just change your |
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-march setting in the cflags (covered in the manual). Personally, I find that |
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the selection of applications is fairly even with x86. You can look at what's |
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available at packages.gentoo.org. I actually used SuSE-64 when it first came |
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out and was strongly disappointed; been using Gentoo since day two of owning |
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this machine. |
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|
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It's always good to know your system, but the entire installation process is |
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rather painless (minus my experience with Grub which isn't architecture |
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dependent). You'll want to learn more about the CPU if you plan on developing |
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for it, but as a user you should be fine. You'll learn a lot simply by using |
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the environment and reading up when you can or run into problems. Anyway, good |
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luck with your install whichever distro you decide to use. |
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-- |
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