From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 17 02:02:10 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64B3616A412 for ; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:02:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kgunders@teamcool.net) Received: from koyukuk.teamcool.net (koyukuk.teamcool.net [209.161.34.19]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0694F43D5A for ; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:02:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kgunders@teamcool.net) Received: from koyukuk.teamcool.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by koyukuk.teamcool.net (TeamCool Rocks) with ESMTP id 032E9F887; Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:02:09 -0600 (MDT) Received: from shredder.teamcool.net (unknown [192.168.1.58]) by koyukuk.teamcool.net (TeamCool Rocks) with ESMTP id D383CF881; Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:02:08 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:02:08 -0600 From: Ken Gunderson To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20061016200208.3e7ab69f.kgunders@teamcool.net> In-Reply-To: <452C0286.000005.20759@pantene.yandex.ru> References: <452C0286.000005.20759@pantene.yandex.ru> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.7 (GTK+ 2.8.20; i386-portbld-freebsd6.1) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Cc: alecn2002@yandex.ru Subject: Re: Fw: To amd64 or not to amd64? X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:02:10 -0000 On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:28:54 +0400 (MSD) "alecn2002" wrote: > > Well, probably this question was discussed here many times, but the last thread about "transiting from i386 to amd64" dated year 2004, so it's very posible things change since that time... > > So, > > I've just upgraded my home comp from AMD Sempron to Athlon64. Only CPU upgrade, nothing else. > > I've booted my old good i386-arched FreeBSD 6.1 and it looks like it works fine. > The question is: will I have any benefits if I'll move to amd64 system, or it's safer and better to stay with i386 arch? > > About 50% of time my children use it to watch movies (DVD, DivX, MPEG-4). > >From the rest I use it for working at home (RadRails, KDevelop, a lot of C/C++ compilation), and my wife use it to access Internet and use OpenOffice. > > Problem-free operation and stability have precedense for me over system speed. Hi Alec: You've gotten some good responses already but I'll add mine fwiw. I've been using FreeBSD for both server and workstation use for a long, long time now. As of late I tend to run amd64 on servers and i386 on workstations. Sure you can make things like video codecs, OO, etc. working w/amd64 on the desktop but you will spend less effort doing so with i386. From what you describe it doesn't sound like you're going to need to worry about 3GB+ of ram or computationally intensive apps. If you do decide you want to explore amd64 the suggestion to get a second identical drive was a good one. Have fun:) -- Best regards, Ken Gunderson "The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." (Thomas Jefferson)