I installed the FC6 for x86_64 on a dual Intel Xeon system. I've installed the i386 versions of Fedora on 20 or 30 machines, and the install was just as smooth (or bumpy) as the i386 experience. I don't see many differences, and the widely-discussed problem that the 64 bit versions of the browser plugins for java and flash do not exist appears to be easily solved by running only the 32 bit version of Firefox. There is one thing about the packaging and installation that I can't understand, however. The original installation, and yum installs afterwords, often install both the i386 version and the x86_64 version of packages. That's fine, as long as they install different files. In the libraries, for example, they are in /usr/lib and /usr/lib64. I understand that. But I can't understand how the i386 and x86_64 packages seem to install the exact same files and both seem to own the exact same files. See: $ rpm -qf /usr/bin/firefox firefox-1.5.0.10-5.fc6 firefox-1.5.0.10-5.fc6 $ yum list firefox Loading "installonlyn" plugin Setting up repositories Reading repository metadata in from local files Installed Packages firefox.i386 1.5.0.10-5.fc6 installed firefox.x86_64 1.5.0.10-5.fc6 installed I thought the RPM system would not allow two packages to claim a single file. How does that work? And why do some rpm repositories install both i386 and x86_64 packages (Fedora core), while others seem not to (livna). Is there a document describing the administrative differences in x86_64 systems for people who are familiar with Linux on i386?? -- Paul E. Johnson Professor, Political Science 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 University of Kansas
