My first experience with a 64-bit OS

[screwballl]

As technology changes every day and more possibilities come available, sometimes it is the side choices that need to be seen before jumping in with both feet.
I am one that tends to stick with what I got as long as it works and typically only build new systems every two years for myself (but still do PC repair and builds on the side for others). I recently acquired a Athlon64 3000+ Socket 939 CPU. I have it sitting in a Biostar Tforce-6100 mobo and 512MB of generic PC3200 memory. It is using the onboard video, LAN and sound (hard drive mentions come later). I downloaded and installed the latest desktop 64-bit version of Ubuntu Linux (6.10 aka Edgy Eft).

Upon the initial boot from the disk, it goes to the standard splash screen asking to boot to desktop or install among the other normal Ubuntu options. As it starts the boot process, I am greeted by a nasty grey looking "ubuntu" wording with pixelized progress bar. I figured I would let it go for now and see if everything in the OS appeared as normal. It did. Upon getting to the typical looking LiveCD desktop, the installation of the OS went just as any other Ubuntu installation has in the past year without a single problem or distorted graphic. The only odd occurence was having to click somewhere in that open window before it would recognize the click on the necessary "next" button, otherwise you would click a few dozen (or hundred) times and it would not work. Once the install was completed, I restarted the system and when it was ready to restart on the nasty looking Ubuntu shutdown/startup screen that it displays asking you to remove disc and press Enter to restart. I did so and pressed Enter button on the keyboard. Nothing. Pressed it again 10 seconds later. Nothing. As many techs know, sometimes pressing it 200 times in a row makes us feel like that 200th press will make it do what its supposed to. Of course after 50 or so I gave up and pressed the restart button on the case. Nothing. Luckily this mobo also has an onboard power and reset buttons directly on the mobo itself. That restart button worked (since I was in there, I went ahead and hooked up the case restart button too ) .
As the system came to life loading from the hard drive (a temporary ATA66 10GB) the nasty looking Ubuntu boot screen showed and this time it did not display the "loading drivers" and Loading this and that", just black below it but still displayed the grayish pixelized progress bar plus the case front LED was flashing and the hard drive was grinding away (as these older ones tend to do) so I knew it was loading.
To the desktop it goes and so far everything else seemed normal for the desktop version of Ubuntu with the default Gnome interface. Everything use seemed to work fine without any problems.... until I got to running a few specific programs that are 32-bit only. The only one worth mentioning was the Folding@Home Linux exe file. I did the typical Terminal startup, cd to the proper directory and run the typical commands to get it started ("sudo chmod +x FAH504-Linux.exe" and then "sudo ./FAH504-Linux.exe") The last command gives me an error that this program cannot run, please check your documentation to see if any commands were entered in wrong. Nothing else. Did some digging here and there on various internet sources with no real luck.
Then I thought maybe it is a memory problem, swapped out some memory, reinstalled OS, same result. Maybe bad CD burn so I downloaded a fresh new copy from a different server on a completely different computer (with XP), burned to CD, installed OS and.... same result. Then I thought of the off chance that it may be the hard drive. Since the hd came in after the last batch of tests, I removed that 10GB noise maker and installed the brand new never used newegg special 80GB SATA3 Western Digital server hard drive. Installed the OS from the last burned disc and.... same result, funky grey boot screen.
After everything I did, tried several other 32-bit programs and they all had the same message. The only programs and apps that would run were ones that had been previously compiled to run in the x86_64 kernel. After all was said and done, I tried several different older kernels such as the k8 and other image types with no help.
As a side note, everything works properly and as it is supposed to without any strange occurrences or glitches or problems in the 32-bit version of this same OS.

The 64-bit Linux OSs still have a long way to go, especially for beginners or enthusiasts. As there is still a known limitation even with Windows based 64-bit OS and others, it seems to me that Linux is ahead of the game as at least its default installed apps work as they're supposed to which is more we can say for any typical Windows installation, especially 64-bit.

In this past hour, I have installed the 32-bit version of Ubuntu 6.10 on this same system and it is working perfectly (just as it was before the mentioned tests), about to get Folding@Home installed on there (for my team 11108 of course).

edit: I mentioned that there was no text below the malformed progress bar, this is something that I didn't realize at he time, but the previous 32-bit Ubuntu was installed as 6.06 which did display the "loading device drivers" and similar messages. The newer Ubuntu 6.10 does not show this anymore for either 32 or 64-bit desktop versions, it only shows the loading progress bar. MY BAD!

[yurimxpxman]

You're right in saying that it has a long way to go. In fact, most of the so-called "64bit apps" are actually mere 32bit apps compiled as a 64bit one, without any real optimizations. However, with the exception of the rare hardware drivers, the 64bit kernel is 100% compatible with everything. It doesn't require 64bit software - only drivers. For that reason, I suspect that the problems you encountered were that of early 64bit drivers. I've never encountered any problems with mine, but they're still fairly new and bug-prone.

I'm currently running the x86_64 version of Fedora Core 6, and it's running very smoothly (aside from an unrelated compiler hick-up). There's no real reason for anyone to run the 64bit version to be honest. From my own experience, it's slightly faster, but the small performance gain is not worth the potential headaches with drivers.

[screwballl]

Yes I did find that overall speed and use of everything was a decent bit faster and no hardware incompatibilities that I found with my basic system.
I agree that it is just not time to switch yet (which was basically the point of this article).

[yurimxpxman]

Not time to switch is right. As a matter of fact, I'm rolling back to Fedora Core 5 i386 right now because I had some compatibility problems and bugs with the 64 bit software.

[MantaBase]

Not bad at all Screwballl


Maybe we should start compiling these

Manta

[dedgar]

I know that in some instances of linux 64 bit you have to install ia32-libs to get the 32 bit program to run in 64 bit land. I had to do it to get the SMP version of FAH to run on my Kubuntu 6.10 64 bit install.
Try the apt-get routine (maybe synamtic can do it?) and install them. FAH should run then.

[screwballl]

I will actually be writing up a second review (or continuation) using a different version (Ubuntu64 6.06.1) PLUS a small addition mention of Windows XP x64. I have them dual booting on that same machine now...
also I am using the SMP F@H without any 32-bit libraries and it works fine (unless it comes with them pre-installed but I have not found them yet)...