From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 6 14:09:27 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C3E216A400 for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:09:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vivek@khera.org) Received: from yertle.kcilink.com (yertle.kcilink.com [65.205.34.180]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3F1243D6E for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:09:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from vivek@khera.org) Received: from [192.168.7.103] (host-103.int.kcilink.com [192.168.7.103]) by yertle.kcilink.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 54873B81E; Thu, 6 Apr 2006 10:09:25 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v749.3) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Vivek Khera Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 10:09:24 -0400 To: Nikolas Britton X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.749.3) Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Pros and Cons of amd64 (versus i386). X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:09:27 -0000 On Apr 6, 2006, at 1:30 AM, Nikolas Britton wrote: > $200 bucks got me a Athlon 64 3000+ Venice and a ASUS A8V Motherboard. > I'll be converting my Pentium 4 2.26GHz desktop system that has > FreeBSD 6.1-PRERELEASE i386 on it, gcc is currently set to build with > -march=pentium2 and -mtune=pentium4 via make.conf If your running a desktop, I'd recommend sticking with 32-bit. For a server doing a lot of I/O, go with 64-bit. The Athlon will run very fast in both modes, but your software compatibility is better in i386 mode. > * How do I buildworld to amd64, and should I? same as always. > * What are the best gcc -mtune / -march flags to use? i use none. however, you could set the CPU type to something more specific; see the /etc/defaults/make.conf file for your options. > * What do all the other -m flags do? read the man pages. > * What -march flags won't run on the AMD platform, will CPUTYPE=p2 > work on AMD? maybe. maybe not. probably would, but recovering from a system with broken binaries is very hard. > * Can I still build packages for other i386 (non 64-bit) systems? no. > * Where can I find more info about FreeBSD on AMD? the freebsd amd64 project page has a little. mostly there is no difference, but some drivers are not stable with large RAM which is the main reason for having 64-bit systems. > * What did I forget to add here? >