On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 00:55, Bob Stia wrote:
> Hello Sluggers,
> You all may recall that a few weeks ago I asked about hardware, prices, etc.
> for a new machine I wanted to build. After much investigation, searching and
> so on, I settled on a "barebones" set up from Monarch.
Good vendor, they know their stuff.
> New case,
Which one?
> lots of fans,460 w PS, an AMD Athlon 64 +3500 on an MSI K8T MB
Er, might have waited on PCI-Express which is only a month away for the
Socket-754/939 platforms. It solves a lot of I/O contention issues
between ATA, NIC and Audio. Right now, unless you go with something
that has the AMD8131 dual PCI-X bus HyperTransport tunnel, you've got
mega-I/O contention issues (just like most other platforms). The
"shared" 0.125GB PCI bus just doesn't provide enough IMHO -- bursting
ATA and NIC traffic of 50MBps+ causes audio delays for many people these
days.
Understand PCI-Express does far more for I/O away from the video.
Unfortunately, all of the enthusiast sites seem to be focused on the
video (sigh).
Also, which K8T mainboard? Socket-754 or 939? The A64 3500+ is
available for both.
> and a gig of ram, a new Nec DVD +-RW/CDRW
Ouch, Sony/Philips DVD+RW drive/firmware. Compatibility is less than
stellar for DVD-R.
> and a Sony 32x52 CDRW,
Why a separate drive? All drives today do CD-R/RW as well.
> plus a "break-in" testing for 3 days, 2 year warranty and shipping
> for $950. Anxiously awaiting it's arrival about the middle of next
> week.
> I already have my shiny new SuSE 9.2 pro sitting here in a box waiting for it.
> Point of all of this? Trying to think ahead at what problems might arise.
> Running SuSE 8.2 right now and have backed up all of the file that I think
> are important. I will reuse my current HD's and put them in the new box.
> There are some major differences between 8.2 and 9.2 Kernel of course. from
> 2.4 to 2.6.
The distro upgrade takes care of that. The Application Binary Interface
(ABI) compatibility of 2.4 -> 2.6 is very good. GCC-GLibC will probably
be the bigger issue for a few apps (but probably not many).
> RPM from 3 to 4, user id from 500 to I000 ?,
Didn't know that one.
> and I understand they have moved some files/directories around.
Largely Linux Standards Base (LSB) 1.3/2.0-draft compliance, which
follows the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) 2.3.
> Plus I will be changing from 32 bit to 64 bit to further complicate matters.
64-bit apps must be linked to /lib64, 32-bit apps to /lib. Typically
this is just a matter of rebuilding for 64-bit, minimizing the need for
32-bit libraries. Most GNU code has been 64-bit clean since the
mid-'90s.
Most apps are 64-bit, but a few apps (e.g., Mozilla/Firefox) that might
use 32-bit libraries (e.g., 3rd party, binary-only plug-ins) are still
32-bit.
> So, I am thinking fresh install vs upgrade.
Oh definitely if you are going Linux/x86-64.
If you don't go Linux/x86-64, then you could upgrade.
Also note that the Linux/x86-64 release from SuSE is _different_.
The last time I checked (and it's been 6 months), the Linux/x86-64
release is _only_ available as "SuSE Linux Professional" and it is $50
more than the regular "Professional" version ($79+$50=$129).
If there is now a "Personal" version of the Linux/x86-64 release, let me
know. I haven't checked in awhile.
> Maybe less problems. Anyway I want to change the fs on some of my partitions
> and/or resize them.
I now use kernel 2.6 / LVM2 and setup volumes with my disks. That way
it is much easier to resize things.
> I am going to try and restore my /home some of /user/local/ some of /etc/
> and another partition named /data which only contains jpegs, mp3's, etc. (no
> problem) I hope. Already running KDE 3.3 which I think comes with 9.2, so
> maybe a complete restore of /home will work ??
Maybe. I just mount my home directories via NFS (SFS) from a server.
Other than a few login script and GNOME considerations, I can even mount
and use the same home directory from Solaris. ;->
> So what do the Sluggers think?? Any more bases to cover, any "gotchas" that
> you may see? etc. etc. Your opinions and expertise are very much respected
> by me. I want your input.
If you stick with Linux/x86, then you can upgrade.
If you move to Linux/x86-64, then you'll want to install clean.
--- TANGENT (if you're interested) ---
You can have an x86-64 processor run with a "LONG" mode (64-bit) kernel,
and still run 32-bit applications. But if you run a "LONG" mode
(64-bit) application, all libraries and support software needs to also
be 64-bit. LONG mode binaries can't use non-LONG mode libraries and
vice-versa. (BTW, the LONG mode is actually 48-bit addressing -- those
who know how segment and offset registers work in x86 can probably
figure out why it is called such in x86-64, and has the corresponding
48-bit addressing limitation of 256TiB ;-).
On Linux, for most apps, they are 64-bit and use libraries in /lib64.
For the few apps that might rely on libraries that are only 32-bit,
those libraries are in /lib. Pure, native 64-bit games like UT2004 run
up to 20% faster.
Microsoft solves the problem in XP 64-bit Edition by not even bothering
to ship much 64-bit. Other than the LONG mode kernel, it's almost
entirely 32-bit. For 64-bit apps, they used the same strategy as they
did for NT 3.1 -- "WoW" -- Windows on Windows. In other words, a Win64
binary accesses the Win32 libraries through a virtual machine.
If this seems slow, it is! UT2004 for XP/64-bit runs upto 25% slower
than on the 32-bit XP version, let alone still slower than the 32-bit
version on XP/64-bit. If companies want their binaries to run fast,
they have to include their own 64-bit library replacements -- assuming
they have the source code. I remember all this "fun" back when Bentley
Systems shipped one of the first two native Win32/NT3.1 apps in
Microstation.
The primary reason why Microsoft doesn't ship 64-bit binaries and
libraries is because, unlike most GNU compatible software, Win32 is no
where near 64-bit clean! Microsoft had the same problem when NT3.1
shipped with regards to Win16. But that's not the worst of it.
There is the added issue that Microsoft itself still produces a _lot_ of
Win16 code c/o Visual Studio 6.0 products (e.g., VB6), even though they
say they don't (and try to blame independent software vendors, ISVs for
the "issue"). And Win16 won't run on XP 64-bit under the Win32 on Win64
environment -- which is an added "compatibility fun" issue. ;-ppp
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