[BlueOnyx:08522] Re: BlueOnyx 5108R released

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Richard,

> Is there anything different about admin for a 64bit system?  Not the GUI,
> I  can see that's the same... I'm thinking of logging in to the shell.

Just software wise 5107R and 5108R are very, very close. Only three modules 
("cce", "i18n" and "base-java.mod") needed some special provisions to allow 
that I could build  them on a 64-bit system. The rest of the GUI code is 
actually unchanged. And even where changes had to be made, it was just 
architectural stuff. Such as that the system libraries on a 64-bit reside 
under /lib64/ instead of /lib/.

For typical day to day usage there is nothing special or really different from 
5107R.

The only difference is that you don't need a PAE kernel to use more than 8GB 
of RAM, as the standard 64-bit kernel is already handling that.

Performance wise 64-bit should be a bit faster here and there, as CPU, RAM and 
the pipelining to the I/O devices ought to be a bit faster. Apache and MySQL 
on a 64-bit system also benefit slightly from better memory management.

The only thing where you have to be careful is when you install extra 
software. There you of course need to pick 64-bit RPMs, 64-bit 5108R PKGs or 
code that was compiled for "X86_64" instead of "i386" or "i686".

> The install process asked for the IP and the usual BX post-install script 
> asked the same.  Is this normal or have I created a conflict by providing 
> two different IPs?  (works OK though so I guess not).

No, there will be no conflict. It takes the settings you entered last and 
overwrites the previous choice. The 5107R and 5108R CDs are the same in that 
regard. I recently had to change the CD and now we unfortunately have to enter 
the network settings twice. I wish that wasn't necessary and in the long run 
I'll see what I can do to streamline that procedure a bit more.

> Last one - which is so trivial I'm almost embarrassed to ask - any chance 
> the CD tray opens at the end of install like it used to on early BX?  I
> only  ask because I'll send the CD to the data centre I use and saying
> 'connect USB drive', 'put disk in' and 'take disk out' isn't as simply as
> it should be :o)

At the end of the install it shows the info that you can now remove the CD and 
when you click on "Reboot", it'll unmount and will usually eject the CD. But 
yeah, I also had a case where that didn't happen once. But that was an old box 
with the usual server CD-ROM drive: A drive that you hardly ever use. Maybe 
the grease on the slide out mechanism was dried in. ;o)

When you see the "Reboot" prompt at the end of the install, you can actually 
take the CD out or disconnect the USB drive without really waiting for it.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber