[x86-64] Opteron box coming --- what to install?

[Alexander Shumakovitch]

  [ please CC: me as I'm not subscribed to this list ]

Hi all!

Our department is going to receive a dual-Opteron box in a couple of
weeks. It will be my task to manage it and I'm currently looking at
software solutions available.

So is it possible to make Debian running on this computer in any way, or
should I go with SuSE? I would certainly prefer the former, since almost
all of our computers are running Debian and I'm much more comfortable
with it. The box will mostly be occupied with heavy computations using
custom C and C++ programs. So basically the only 64-bit thing I need is
a stable development environment (like gcc, gdb, libc6, ncurses,
libreadline etc.) The rest being 32-bit is fine. What are the best
options for me?

I've looked at http://www.arndb.de/debian but am not sure I would be
able to install Debian from scratch using the packages there.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

  --- Alexander.