Xeon 64-bit?

[Jarod Wilson]

On Monday 09 July 2007 13:08:10 Chip Marshall wrote:
> On 7/9/07, Paul Lussier <p.lussier at comcast.net> wrote:
> > klussier at comcast.net writes:
> > > Do I need the ia64, the amd64, or something else?
> >
> > Well, who makes the Xeon?  I'd go with the kernel for that chipset.
> >
> > Hint:  AMD does not make the Xeon ;)
> >        iaXX stands for Intel Architecture where the XX is number of
> > bits...
>
> As I understand it, the Intel Xeon 64 bit CPUs are EM64T, not IA64. The
> only IA64 CPU I know of is the Itanium. An AMD64 kernel should be
> appropriate on an EM64 machine. To the best of my knowledge, an IA64 kernel
> won't work at all.

Correct. Not even close.

> amd64 = em64 = x86-64[1], I believe it's generally referred to as amd64
> because AMD beat Intel to market with a widely used x86 compatible 64-bit
> CPU.
>
> [1] for certain values of "="

I find the use of 'amd64' for package arch in debian/ubuntu/derivatives... 
well, dumb and confusing for end-users who don't know any better (as 
evidenced by the existence of this thread).

I presume Debian jumped on building 64-bit packages for the AMD64 architecture 
before Intel announced their 64-bit x86-compatible chips, and decided to call 
the packages amd64. The lack of planning and foresight there is amusing. 
Unless of course its an intentional F-U to Intel... In which case, its 
amusing in a different way, but still stupid if you care about end-users.

(Nb: Red Hat and SUSE generally use x86_64 as the arch for AMD64 and EM64T 
alike)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com