I haven't accepted the new AMD-64 box the computer store has
built for me, because I can't get it to run in 64-bit mode.
I provided the sarge net-install CD's for both AMD-64 and the older
386 architectures.
The netinstall for AMD64 went fine up to a point (except it was 30 times
as slow
as the i386 install which he performed later), but when it came time
to boot into the installed system, the boot stopped after it had
identified the USB ports.
Repeating entire process with the i386 netinstall, it installed nicely
(30 time faster), and booted up properly. But he never got it to use
the two hard disks in DMA mode.
(Oh yes -- he installed a cheap Realtek ethernet card because netinstall
would not recognise the Ethernet on the motherboard. But that's not a
big problem for me.)
He did all this this at the shop, and then called me to tell me the
problems.
I went there on the weekend, and managed to install the sarge AMD-64
kernel on the i386-based system, and it had the same problem as the
original AND-64 install -- crash during boot.
Using aptitude, I tried to fetch a more recent kernel, but so far
have not succeeded. Just sticking in "etch" into my apt-sources file
does not seem to be enough. What do I need to do to get aptitude
to see a more recent kernel?
Or maybe it has moved, and I should ask -- what deb line should
I use to find the current amd64 repository?
Sorry not the have the details about motherboard identity and the like
-- the machine is currently at the shop and I'm not. I'm not accepting
it by taking it home before it works. The tech is planning to try
out Ubuntu or Knoppix next in order to show me the machine really does
work in Linux in 64-bit mode, but I'd prefer Debian. He uses Ubuntu on
his AMD-64 at home.
-- hendrik