Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Gentoo on an AMD 64bit portable

[James Ausmus]

On 6/16/06, James <wireless@×××××××××××.com> 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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