On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:51:39 +0000, James Wilkinson <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote: > > Of course, when we move to AMD64, it is completely different story. For > > that platform, there is benefit if we want to utilize 64-bit data types, > > so we have almost all packages recompiled specifically for that > > platform. Although, I would be much happier if Linux folks took > > approach from Digital Unix for Alpha processors and/or the approach > > OpenBSD folks have for 64 bit processors, and not the one from 64-bit > > Solaris (where there's also that terrible mix of 32-bit and 64-bit > > stuff). IMO, wanna run 64-bit, do it clean, don't mix and match. > > Great theory, and I understand one that Debian have followed. So don't > blame "Linux folks" in general... > > Unfortunately, OpenOffice doesn't yet compile for x86_64 (as far as I > know), and a lot of the third-party media players which rely on external > codecs don't have 64 bit versions of the (usually closed) codecs. > > The Debian workaround for this is to have a separate 32 bit install, and > use chroot to run 32 bit packages in the 32 bit install. It's arguable > whether this is particularly "cleaner" than Fedora's approach. [snip] One of the great innovations of the AMD64 architecture is the ability to run 32-bit programs in a 64-bit operating system, or even a 32-bit operating system, at about the same performance as you would get with a similar 32-bit processor. I agree that it does get a little messy having 32-bit libraries installed along-side the 64-bit libraries, but it is very convinient to be able to run both 32 and 64-bit programs. Once 64-bit becomes a little more mature, and companies that produce closed-source Linux programs (or plugins, etc) start porting to 64-bit (as well as those open-source projects that still aren't 64-bit compatible), I think Debian's chroot approach might be a good alternative to look at. Once Windows x64 comes out, perhaps we will begin to see much more support for 64-bit applications. Jonathan
