From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 18 21:15:32 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38B5B16A421 for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:15:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from turgeon.martin@gmail.com) Received: from an-out-0708.google.com (an-out-0708.google.com [209.85.132.251]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E73AF13C448 for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:15:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from turgeon.martin@gmail.com) Received: by an-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id c14so419378anc for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:31 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=NkhkN3+KM0Bn4yWV8IJwK24atluGJFdKFhpL3XL2MqI/JjWIV3o+NdN+UgxoCEcvwaLbZaeaI75Y83X5gaXBOG24Sg++YKqfKqQd+ETVfmffywiwR1GqkPIhhjQtyiUgRRyuFfmmj1dc2i5DJCALNZ5lcx7tvpeaTfFGs7SSeE0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=pC9Y2HB+hz6RA6qK4HZlIY8JckMR/ph2kF6jbtjobZkGRVh6xnDp9rw8+qUByfnFWwdryLmjj7ie6qBaZtpB488bwcyGEuuhojkN9kA4U+V/4k8quwMj5+ojrluSy++9mCXiAovK1rKOBCPKymvEp6AANcl4I5IdvOKxlgYjsWA= Received: by 10.100.173.19 with SMTP id v19mr1458917ane.1182201330970; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.100.41.16 with HTTP; Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:30 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <322073cc0706181415o17ecd532i971d8bdf5ea1dafd@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:15:30 -0400 From: "Martin Turgeon" To: "Jeremy Chadwick" In-Reply-To: <20070618180813.GA13003@eos.sc1.parodius.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <4676BAF0.4030703@gmail.com> <20070618180813.GA13003@eos.sc1.parodius.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: i386 with PAE or AMD64 on PowerEdge with 4G RAM X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:15:32 -0000 2007/6/18, Jeremy Chadwick : > > On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 01:03:44PM -0400, Martin Turgeon wrote: > > I just receive 2 PowerEdge servers (a 1950 and a 860) both with 4G of > RAM. I > > installed FreeBSD 6.2 Release i386 on both of them. Unfortunately, only > 3,5G > > is recognized on the 860 and 3,3G on the 1950. > > dmesg on 860: > > real memory = 3757834240 (3583 MB) > > avail memory = 3678318592 (3507 MB) > > > > I am facing a difficult decision. Should I use i386 with PAE enabled in > the > > kernel (I read a lot of warnings using it) or should I go with AMD64? > Which > > branch should I follow? > > Based on what I've read from some of the porters and miscellaneous > others, generally-speaking there's too many issues with amd64 (in the > sense of 32-bit vs. 64-bit compatibility -- not the fault of the kernel > or otherwise) to consider it worth switching to. > > I personally don't run 64-bit OSes because most developers still use > 32-bit machines and don't have a way to develop/test in 64-bit > environments. > > That said, I'd recommend you stick with i386 + PAE, simply for > guaranteed application compatibility. My setup is fairly standard (as I described), should I expect problem with 64 bit version of these programs? You'll lose the amount of RAM you're seeing due to PAE addressing for > PCI address space. I can dig you up a usage map (broken down by how > much is taken up by each portion; PCI, ACPI, etc.) if you want one. > It's for SuperMicro systems, but the general idea applies to most > everything. I'm not sure to understand what you mean by that. Are you saying that PAE will eat the 500M that should be available? -- > | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | > | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | > | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | > | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB | > >