My experience with SuSE 64-bit

[techieMoe]

I couldn't think of a better place to put this post, so if a mod has a better idea, feel free to move it. I just thought I'd outline my recent experience using SuSE 9.1 Professional 64-bit.

As anyone familiar with the forums recently may already know, I built an Athlon64 system about a week ago and decided I'd take the plunge and install a 64-bit OS on it. At the moment, the only one I have is the DVD of SuSE 9.1 Pro, so I tried it.

The Athlon64 has the ability to run 64-bit or 32-bit code, so the choice of which type of OS is up to the owner. The downside I ran into with using a 64-bit OS is that aside from the packages that came precompiled with the distribution, no other programs I tried to install worked (understandably, since they were compiled for an x86-32). Had I a little more time and a broadband internet connection, I could have downloaded the source for some (though not all) of these programs and simply recompiled for my processor. The problem with this is:

• a.)I have no broadband
  b.)I have no source code for the commercial apps I want to run

So I was faced with a choice. Although the precompiled 64-bit applications/games ran just fine (though I might add no faster as far as I could tell than their 32-bit counterparts) I would be relegated to recompiling everything until 64-bit binaries become more readily available (which simply won't happen for all my Loki games, which are no longer being developed). I like the idea of running a 64-bit OS on a 64-bit chip, but at this point it's just not practical for what I want to do with my computer.

The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was that my favorite Java IDE, Eclipse, didn't work. I made sure I downloaded the AMD64 version, and it still gave me strange errors and then crashed. SuSE does have a precompiled version of it on their disc, but it's an older version that doesn't come with JUnit, so that didn't work either.

Another unfortunate thing I've noticed is that most of the game publishers seem to have a "why bother?" attitude toward 64-bit native clients (with the notable exception of Epic with UT2004, but it's still just a tech demo). Sure, I understand that they make no money from porting clients, and porting to a completely new architecture is harder than porting from one OS to the other, but I still find this disconcerting.

Yes, before you ask, I am a gamer, and most of the "apps" I am referring to are commercial games that as far as I know have no 64-bit clients and/or installers for them. These games are:

• *UT2003
  *Quake 3 Arena
  *NingPo Mahjongg
  *Marble Blast Gold
  *Eric's Ultimate Solitaire
  *Doom 3 (when the client comes out)

The upside to all of this is that the Athlon64 can run comparably well (if not better) than my old 32-bit system, even if it's not in native mode, and when one day 64-bit computing becomes more popular, I'm ready to go. Until then, I'll settle for 32-bit gaming.

The silver lining to this for anyone looking to get an Athlon64 system is that AMD did an excellent job with the 32-bit emulation on this chip. I've run XP Pro and SuSE 9.1 32-bit editions with some of my most system-intensive games (Doom 3 on XP, UT2003 and Neverwinter Nights on Linux) and it runs better than my *native* 32-bit CPU did. Load times are cut in half, and thanks to the built-in memory controller, memory transfer speeds are through the roof. Good work, AMD.

[Davidisms]

I also have an AMD64 chip, and I noticed your refrence to 32-bit emulation. From what I understand, AMD64 actually supports native 32-bit, as well as native 64-bit code, unlike it's Intel counterpart which does emulate 32-bit processing(slowing performance a little).
I'm currently learning Linux, as Microsoft finally put me through the roof, and I've had experience with XP 64-bit beta. Though this is a Linux forum, I'd like to add that XP64 takes advantage of AMD's 32/64-bit native processing and, through WOW64(Windows32 On Windows64), actually supports both 32bit software as well as 64bit, often even boosting the performance of 32bit apps...just thought it was interesting...

[techieMoe]

I also have an AMD64 chip, and I noticed your refrence to 32-bit emulation. From what I understand, AMD64 actually supports native 32-bit, as well as native 64-bit code, unlike it's Intel counterpart which does emulate 32-bit processing(slowing performance a little).

Ah. I wasn't aware of that.

I'm currently learning Lenux, as Microsoft finally put me through the roof, and I've had experience with XP 64-bit beta. Though this is a Lenux forum, I'd like to add that XP64 takes advantage of AMD's 32/64-bit native processing and, through WOW64(Windows32 On Windows64), actually supports both 32bit software as well as 64bit, often even boosting the performance of 32bit apps...just thought it was interesting...

I have played with XP64 a little bit. The show stopper for me was that at the time I installed it I didn't have any 3D drivers, which made my usual set of apps (read: games) basically useless. I've seen that Nvidia offers beta drivers for XP64, though, so one day I may try it again. As it is, the 32-bit performance is quite good on my system.

[techieMoe]

I had a nice little installfest today and I thought I'd report my findings for the eager would-be 64-bitters out there. The OSes I tried for now are just SuSE 9.1 Pro 64-bit and the XPPro 64-bit beta.

SuSE 9.1 Pro installed and ran just as I'd come to expect from it on the 32-bit version. There was no weirdness with my SATA drive (more on that later) and all the programs that installed off the DVD ran without a hitch. The Nvidia drivers for AMD64 work just fine as well.

I also made a wonderful discovery in the form of a little-known app called linux32. Running install scripts through it allows you to install 32-bit apps (read:games) on your 64-bit OS and the application doesn't know the difference! What it does is basically redirect the output of uname -m, which is used by scripts to determine the type of CPU on which they are running. Instead of getting "x86_64" which causes most to crash out and say they're not compatible, linux32 gives them what they're expecting, "i686". This program singlehandedly opened up the world of 64-bit OSes to me since I was then able to install all my commercial programs in SuSE 64.

On the other side of the coin was XP64 beta. Yes, this is a Linux forum so you're no doubt wondering why on earth I am offering a review of a Microsoft product, and a BETA at that. Isn't that unfair, since it's not exactly finished yet? I say to you, YES, but come on, folks, how often has Microsoft been fair with US?

XP64 was a host of problems from the first boot. The installer refused to recognize my SATA drive (which Linux had no trouble doing), even after I swiped an old floppy drive to load my motherboard's third-party RAID drivers. I ended up digging up another old piece of hardware, a 20GB IDE drive, and installing it on that. It's supremely ironic that in order to use the latest and greatest technology, I *must* use Linux.

Once I had the thing installed, I promptly installed the latest Nvidia 3D drivers hoping that once I had that done, I could install some games, since if Microsoft has one thing going for them, it's that GAMES WORK ON IT. Well, for once I was disappointed. Apparently the highly-publicized "WoW64" undercarriage that is supposed to make XP64 run 32-bit programs is completely missing or just plain turned off in this version, because nothing I tried to install would work (and not just games).

So, to all of you holding out to see if it's time to take the plunge into the 64-bit OS arena, I can say with confidence that the combination of the AMD64 chip and SuSE 9.1 Professional, you can, and for once, this is something that you can ONLY do on Linux.

[solman66]

Thanks for the information.

I've had similar experiences with windows 64 bit. There's just not that much going for it, and not much hardware working on it yet.

I'm doing a gentoo install tonight. I just put on debian 32 bit yesterday and thought about using debian 64.... but i've always wanted to try gentoo.

My biggest dissapointment is going to be that i can't use my builtin wifi card because i need the ndiswrapper and there is no 64 version of the windows driver.

thanks for letting my know about linux32.

i kind of assumed wow64 would be worthless, just had a hunch..... it kind of reminded me of the itanium processor, which is worthless in 32-bit apps.

[lordnothing]

**Moved to Coffee Lounge

[tylerwylie]

If my next computer happens to be a 64 bit chip I would have to try Gentoo on it first, although there seems to be problems on installation, it seems that compiling from source for a 64 bit chip would be rather insane.

[techieMoe]

If my next computer happens to be a 64 bit chip I would have to try Gentoo on it first, although there seems to be problems on installation, it seems that compiling from source for a 64 bit chip would be rather insane.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying here... how is compiling from source on a 64-bit chip any different than compiling from source on a 32-bit chip? Either way it's going to take an awful lot of time (one reason I don't use Gentoo all that much).

[tylerwylie]

Compared to my 2.4ghz P4, a 64 bit chip would be a nice step up. Plus I'd love to have it to distcc with.

[techieMoe]

Compared to my 2.4ghz P4, a 64 bit chip would be a nice step up. Plus I'd love to have it to distcc with.

Oh, no doubt. I wasn't sure whether you were saying it would be a *good* or a *bad* thing compiling on a 64-bit chip. I've certainly enjoyed moving up to 64. I have yet to install Gentoo on it, but I may...once I get faster internet.