what about AMD optimized software?

[NeoGen]

Since we are a large group of people dedicated mainly to AMD processors, wouldn't it be nice that we had a section in the downloads page for AMD optimized software? :)

[Bionic_Redneck]

Like what kind of software? I did build some mandrake rpms for athonxp but we didn't have room for them on the old site and I now use Gentoo linux but I did make a guide to get the basic install going using gentoo and evrything does get optimized. I don't think windows users would see much of a difference if software was optimized because most of the gain are seen from optimizing the OS

[NeoGen]

What kind of software? Good question you got there. If it wasn't for the problem of the ever limited webspace I'd say "anything!". But it has to be rationed, so there can only be small programs and stuff like that. I've found a few little nice AMD optimized thingies in websites, unfortunately I see that most of them are outdated already.
I myself am a fan of emulators for example, and for a while back there were AMD optimized builds of the mythical emulator M.A.M.E., which I believe that even the people who are not into emulation will know what it is. They stopped doing it unfortunately.
I also found an AMD optimized version of the famous POVRay, a raytracing design tool, which I liked a few years ago but was never able to understand much of the 3D design language it uses. It is outdated too already, I think.
And in the field of gaming, I've come across AMD optimized builds of Quake and Soldier Of Fortune, and I believe there might be other games too.
If I didn't hate C and C++ so much I'd tinker with the source code of everything I could get my hands on, and if I was fortunate enough to find a good compiler for x86 platform AMD optimized I'd produce builds of everything myself. But I am devoted with my heart and soul to all flavours of BASIC (since the oldie Spectrum 48k to nowadays Visual Basic), and I think there are no good compilers for it.
Enough ranting, now back to business, Bionic_Redneck if you can make builds of software AMD optimized that would be great. I might be one of the few people here in the comunity who has never had Linux installed in his PC, but I bet many people here do and would like it. Anything is of use from zip compression programs to full scaled Linux builds.

And if the rest of you people that watch this post have oppinions about it, do tell them. I like to hear everyone's oppinion, even if it's against my idea. I'll risk saying that Bionic_Redneck feels the same. (If you don't, please correct me) Ok people? Let's hear you out! Everyone's got right to speak here, right? :P

[Bionic_Redneck]

I can say that mandrake does improve greatly having rpms optimized to your cpu but then you have to build new rpms every time you upgrade the package. I have tried most of the source based distros and some are easier to install but gentoo by far the best. Take for example you want to install gimp all you do is type "emerge gimp" and then it downloads source and builds it using the cflags you put in /etc/make.conf so really you can optimized as much or as little as you want also once you are happy with the packages you have installed but want to upgrade the package to newest stable packages simply typing "emerge sync" gets the latest portage snapshot and then "emerge -U world" builds and installs all upgradable packages

[Jeff]

Bionic_Redneck, please IM me on AIM. Thanks

[Bionic_Redneck]

I put k12ltsp 4.0.1 on my second hdd to run the diskless machines on is just fedora core 1 with ltsp 4 already installed and have been playing around with rebuildng a few of the rpms.