x86_64 mail servers

[Mark Nienberg]

I'm getting ready to migrate a MailScanner server to new hardware.  The 
new machine has an Opteron chip.  Assuming I use a linux distro that 
comes in both x86 and x86_64 versions, is there any reason to avoid the 
x86_64 version? (I'm not asking about which distro to use!)

I'm running a similar machine as a file server using x86_64 so I am 
somewhat familiar with it, but that machine uses mostly software that 
came with the distro and is already compiled.  The MailScanner machine 
needs more third-party stuff and I wonder about the ability to obtain 
and compile all those perl modules and so forth.

I've seen comments on this list that the x86_64 didn't seem to make much 
difference and I admit it is simpler to use the plain x86 version, but 
it bothers me a little to intentionally not use the software that is 
specifically configured for the chip.

Thanks for any insights.

Mark Nienberg
Tipping Mar + associates
Berkeley, CA