Suggestion for a new Opteron 1.6ghz box.

[mike <mike@mike2k.com>]

Based on the maturity of the AMD64 platform in regards to debian - what
would people suggest running for a server mainly running:

OpenSSH (very low traffic, maybe 2 users)
Zeus webserver
PHP Accelerator (phpa) + FastCGI
Tinydns/Djbdns
NFS client

It will not require XFree86 (possibly a few libs for image processing for
ImageMagick and the like...) but not for an actual console.

Would anyone recommend using a pure 64-bit build? or a 32-bit one, and put
on the 64-bit friendly GCC and do a hybrid install? Or scrap it altogether
and just do a normal, 32-bit x86 install?

Also, which installer would one suggest using then? Sarge, Woody, or sid?

It appears that nobody (fromw hatI've got from the list prior to my email)
is suggesting using pure64 for production, and frowns on a hybrid install.
I have a dual opteron system sitting here that I tried installing Debian
on, it did not like my Si3114 chipset - so I had to use some special
Debian sarge bootdisk with a modified 2.4.x kernel - thus putting me into
normal 32 bit mode. Then I used the AMD64 Howto instructions to get a lot
of AMD64 compiled binaries and packages on including GCC and such - but it
was still crappy with some library issues as well as horrible when it came
to trying to use the debian package manager (apt) with a mixture of sarge
and woody sources.

Since you know my needs, would it be stupid to even bother with anything
special and just use this as a nice speedy x86 32-bit box? Or would I gain
for trying to get a pure64 install going (remember, this is a single 1.6
opteron, not the dual I described above) - my provider will be handling
the install on this, not me.

Thanks in advance for any quick replies. I have a big decision to make
(I'm probably ordering 4 of these opterons and would like to get them
installed and up and running ASAP)

- mike