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#1 2008-04-24 09:59:31

kratz
Member
Registered: 2008-04-24
Posts: 10

Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

I'm gonna order a new computer with a Intel Core 2 QUAD Q9300 today.
I'm curious about how that processor will work with the pre-compiled standard kernel i686?
I really don't want to run a 64-bit kernel because there are lots of software thats not yet supported by 64-bit.

Sorry if this question already have been posted, I just registered and have not had the time to search.
I reserve myself from misspelling.

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#2 2008-04-24 13:04:32

brain0
Developer
From: Aachen - Germany
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 1,382

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

The x86_64 kernel and applications are more optimized than the i686 ones (i686 only uses instructions for Pentium Pro and later, x86_64 uses everything that all of the AMD64, newer P4 and Core 2 support). That said, a Core 2 Quad on Arch will be fast like hell, no matter if it's i686 or x86_64.

I own two Core 2 Duo machines, one T5300 and one E4500. Both are the "small" versions with the small cache and the lower CPU frequency (those slow models aren't even available as Quad CPUs) and my machines are soooooo fast.


About stuff not being ported: The only thing that is really missing (with no viable opensource alternative) is the flashplayer. For Java, there is icedtea in AUR which has a working browser plugin, for PDFs there is kpdf/xpkf/evince. On my machine, everything except flash runs natively on x86_64.

Oops, forgot wine, but I don't really need it.

Last edited by brain0 (2008-04-24 13:07:48)

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#3 2008-04-24 13:43:43

kratz
Member
Registered: 2008-04-24
Posts: 10

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

Thanks for the answer.
That was the only thing I wanted to know, that it works with all the cores out-of-the-box on i686;)

I know that I loose a little bit of the capacity, but I dont really care. Arch is so fast on every computer i tried it on (ppc, AMD 32-bit, P2, P3, P4, Celeron, AMD64, AMD64 X2) so  I dont really care about it;)

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#4 2008-04-24 15:39:31

Rumor
Member
From: Albany, NY
Registered: 2006-07-07
Posts: 638

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

kratz wrote:

Thanks for the answer.
That was the only thing I wanted to know, that it works with all the cores out-of-the-box on i686;)

Yes, they are supported out of the box on i686.  When I remember to run conky, it shows activity on all four cores. I'm not geek enough to know what it means, but it looks cool lol

[matthew@mushroom ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 15
model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6700  @ 2.66GHz
stepping    : 11
cpu MHz        : 2666.704
cache size    : 4096 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 4
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5338.72
clflush size    : 64

processor    : 1
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 15
model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6700  @ 2.66GHz
stepping    : 11
cpu MHz        : 2666.704
cache size    : 4096 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 1
cpu cores    : 4
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5335.56
clflush size    : 64

processor    : 2
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 15
model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6700  @ 2.66GHz
stepping    : 11
cpu MHz        : 2666.704
cache size    : 4096 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 2
cpu cores    : 4
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5335.60
clflush size    : 64

processor    : 3
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 15
model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6700  @ 2.66GHz
stepping    : 11
cpu MHz        : 2666.704
cache size    : 4096 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 3
cpu cores    : 4
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5335.60
clflush size    : 64

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#5 2008-04-24 16:19:08

big_gie
Member
Registered: 2005-01-19
Posts: 637

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

Using Arch x86_64 on Q6600 Quad core (2 of them more precisely)
Works great!!!

I need java to access a certain site. I know there is icetea, but I already set up 32bits chroot with wine, flash and java. What is frustrating is that if firefox is running, trying to launch 32bit firefox will detect the running 64bit one, and just open a new tab hmm What I did was to compiled icecat, a GNU version of firefox from aur. It uses a different profile then firefox, so you can have your 64bit firefox running with your 32bit icecat with flash/java...

Which programs you really need? You could set up a chroot for them, while keeping a great 64bit system.

These machines are great. In a couple of month, I'm 5th in ArchLinux team's folding at home!

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#6 2008-04-24 23:18:13

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

kratz wrote:

I really don't want to run a 64-bit kernel because there are lots of software thats not yet supported by 64-bit.

There is no such software.

Running x86 Linux on an amd64 chip, would be a foolish course of action.

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#7 2008-04-25 05:53:24

kratz
Member
Registered: 2008-04-24
Posts: 10

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

wantilles wrote:
kratz wrote:

I really don't want to run a 64-bit kernel because there are lots of software thats not yet supported by 64-bit.

There is no such software.

Running x86 Linux on an amd64 chip, would be a foolish course of action.

There are lots of software, especially games which refuses to run on a 64-bit system.
I already run i686 on amd64, and it works really fine. I tried the x86_64 version and couldent really notice the difference exept for that you had to emulate 32-bit to run certain software.
Sure, I have never tried it on a CPU as fast as this, and I cant really tell the results before i've tried it.
If I feel that the computer could be faster I will probably try the 64-bit environment. But however it will be fast as hell with 1600MHz motherboard and 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 memorys and some other great stuff.

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#8 2008-04-25 08:08:34

wantilles
Member
From: Athens - Greece
Registered: 2007-03-29
Posts: 327

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

kratz wrote:

There are lots of software, especially games which refuses to run on a 64-bit system.

There are no games in Linux.

kratz wrote:

I already run i686 on amd64, and it works really fine. I tried the x86_64 version and couldent really notice the difference...

1. I never said it does not run fine.

2. I said it runs slower and less responsive.

3. If you had real amd64 hardware (AMD K8 or K10) and not semi-compatible, emulated, Intel EM64T, you would notice much greater difference - improvement in performance, responsiveness, and SMP behavior.

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#9 2008-04-25 08:33:18

kratz
Member
Registered: 2008-04-24
Posts: 10

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

wantilles wrote:
kratz wrote:

There are lots of software, especially games which refuses to run on a 64-bit system.

There are no games in Linux.

kratz wrote:

I already run i686 on amd64, and it works really fine. I tried the x86_64 version and couldent really notice the difference...

1. I never said it does not run fine.

2. I said it runs slower and less responsive.

3. If you had real amd64 hardware (AMD K8 or K10) and not semi-compatible, emulated, Intel EM64T, you would notice much greater difference - improvement in performance, responsiveness, and SMP behavior.

Whats your problem?
There are tousands of great games, both commersial and free for GNU/Linux.
There is no games I miss. The best games are always ported to GNU/Linux so if anyone says the opposite, they dont know anything.

I have tried it on AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon 64X2. You can barely see any difference even when you compile huge applications.
Obviosly you dont know what you're talking about, so please, stay out of the discussion.

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#10 2008-04-26 17:13:29

gvescovi
Member
Registered: 2008-04-25
Posts: 8

Re: Arch i686 on Intel QUAD?

wantilles wrote:
kratz wrote:

There are lots of software, especially games which refuses to run on a 64-bit system.

There are no games in Linux.

kratz wrote:

I already run i686 on amd64, and it works really fine. I tried the x86_64 version and couldent really notice the difference...

1. I never said it does not run fine.

2. I said it runs slower and less responsive.

3. If you had real amd64 hardware (AMD K8 or K10) and not semi-compatible, emulated, Intel EM64T, you would notice much greater difference - improvement in performance, responsiveness, and SMP behavior.

So, the Intel has a "emulated" 64 bits processor? how is that? it doesn´t make difference to use a 64 bits OS in a IA64 system?

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