I am getting sicker and sicker of Microsoft, so I plan to put together a new computer with some money I will have soon, and have it be exclusively for Linux (Fedora Core 3). The problem is, I would like to go AMD-64, like I have in my current system, because of the better performance for the money, yet it seems that there are problems with a lot of 64-bit related aspects. I previously installed Mandrake, but then I never did anything with it. I never booted into it, I just kept using XP. Now that I have a desire to abandon Microsoft, I installed FC3 on a partition on my current computer. This was my first real encounter with linux. When I tried to install macromedia flash player, it told me that it wouldn't work on 64-bit systems... I've also heard a lot about problems with graphics cards and everything, especially with 64-bit systems. Are there a lot of problems? I would be using it for gaming and everything, so graphics support is necessary. I won't be putting this together for a few months, but is it worth it to go for the 64-bit? Or should I just stick with 32?
If you are going 64 bit you could run gentoo in which EVERYTHING can be compiled so that it is 64bit. Linux is far ahead of windows in this respect. with Gentoo if you install anything it will be compiled automatically and made 64bit. Just dont use an ATi card and you will be fine (ATi has comical driver support for linux.) Here is their x86-64 forum
Okay, what does that mean, exactly? Haha, sorry, but I'm not too experienced with the whole Linux thing. Is gentoo the only distro that does this, or does every distro do it, and I just didn't know it because I'm st00pid.
Most linux distros come with a set of basic pre-compiled packages which they just install. Gentoo on the other hand (if you do a "stage 1" installation) will begin by compiling the compiler itself, which it will then use to compile the other packages. This takes quite a long time, but when you've finished, you'll have an OS that is exactly tailored for your hardware.
Basically, Gentoo uses a package management system called Portage which is (in my opinion) the proverbial dogs danglies. Basically, in Gentoo, to install a program you type: #emerge programname And the computer will connect to the server, download the source code, compile it, and then install it. Most other distro's package management thingers (for example, debian uses "apt") will only download pre-compiled binaries. So, what does this actually mean? Well, it means that in Gentoo everything you install is optimised for your hardware, and you can cut down on a bit of bloat because some programs come with "optional" dependencies/compilation options-- so, if you know fine well you are only going to be using the command line on your box then you can tell Portage not to compile programs with support for "X" (which controls graphical systems in linux). Of course, there are a few cons to compiling everything from source--- it takes longer to install things because compilation can take a fairly long time. And some people will argue that there isn't actually much performance benefit in compiling everything... Personally, I love Gentoo purely because Portage is so good. The compilation part I don't really have any strong feelings either way--- I just like the ease of install using Portage. Blimey, that was a bit of an essay! Cheers Sam
portage is one of the best reasons to use gentoo i tried out suse 9.1 a little while ago and liked it at first but yast started to really piss me off im running a stage 3 install and its still noticably faster than a pre-compiled distro
