Re: Should we build i386 or i686 rpms?

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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


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