AMD64 and Debian

mop — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:03:00 -0400

Some notes about my experience installing Debian on an AMD64...

hardware

It’s a refurbished E-Machines T6000 with 512MB RAM and a 160GB Western Digital disk. TigerDirect was clearing them out @ $850. It’s a nice small box, and quiet too.

install

I tried to re-partition the disk to save the pre-installed Windoze OS with no luck. Apparently the Mandrake install disk is able to re-partition XP disks but I was too impatient to burn a Mandrake CD.

I was also too impatient to burn a Debian-AMD64 CD, although this approach is apparently quite mature. Instead, I chose the ’chroot’ approach. Bootstrapping with a normal x86 (backwards compatible CPU platform!) allows the 64-bit OS to be installed in a chroot environment. The debootstrap makes the process almost foolproof. Not quite mike-proof as I was still groking chroots and grub. The biggest mistake I made was failing to mount a proc file system in the chroot dir before switching to the new root.

FWIW, I think it may have been possible to install Debian from CompactFlash, via the USB reader -- maybe in another lifetime.

pure 64 port

The pure-64 port of Debian more-or-less duplicates the packages in Debian Sid. Packages that do not compile for 64-bit are excluded (e.g. OpenOffice), and some packages compile but segfault (e.g. Xprint). I have yet to run XFree or even xfb via VNC, but have heard some success stories. PostgreSQL works as advertised, as does the Blackdown Java port (1.4.2-rc1).

It’s worth noting that the Debian community is still divided about the future of the AMD64 port. The controversy arose because some would like to see the pure-64 port become the official Debian AMD64 port, even though there is no clear way to support 32-bit applications. Bi-arch solutions tend to be klugy, although it seems to be a necessary evil.

performance

So far I can only provide circumstantial evidence about the relative performance of my AMD64 box. It appears to be quite zippy when tasks are in-memory and sluggish when accessing the disk. I need to add some RAM before benchmarking the H database.

specs

albert:/home/mpierson# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 4
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 2000.162
cache size      : 1024 KB
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips        : 3923.96
TLB size        : 1088 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

mpierson@albert:~$ /usr/local/jdk/bin/java -version
java version "1.4.2-rc1"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build Blackdown-1.4.2-rc1)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build Blackdown-1.4.2-rc1, mixed mode)

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8385 [K8T800 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 01)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800 South]
0000:00:07.0 Communication controller: Conexant HSF 56k HSFi Modem (rev 01)
0000:00:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81)
0000:00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
0000:00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [K8T800 South]
0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78)
0000:00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 NorthBridge
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600]
0000:01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)