[geeks] FreeBSD advice please?

[Phil Stracchino]

Joshua Boyd wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 08:20:18AM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> 
>>> Sevan / Venture37
>>> P.S if you're interested in trying ZFS on FreeBSD you'll need to use the 
>>> amd64 version, if your cpu's will support it.
>> ZFS is only supported on FreeBSD on AMD64?  If soi, I'm not going to get
>> very far with dual Intel Xeons then ...
> 
> That depends on if the Xeons in question can run AMD64 binaries.
> 
> FWIW, ZFS really wants a 64bit machine, and ZFS really wants a lot of
> RAM.  1 gig can feel really pinched on a default install of Solaris
> Express, at least until you kill a bunch of management crab.

The box has 4GB of RAM.  I have no idea whether a Xeon of this model
(can't tell you the exact model without pulling heatsinks or getting a
look at /proc/cpuinfo) can run amd64 binaries.

Any pointers on finding out whether they have amd64 support?  If they
do, I'd sooner run amd64 binaries than i386.

Eight passes through memtest86 found no memory errors, and I just
completed a full verification pass on the boot disks.  Following Sevan's
advice, I disabled hyperthreading in BIOS, and with hyperthreading
disabled the machine boots FreeBSD 7.1R i386 without any problem.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.