Robert P. J. Day wrote:
moving on, i have a roomful of gateway MX7120 laptops (with AMD
64-bit mobile athlon CPU) that i use for linux training and, until
now, i've just wimped out and installed the 32-bit version of fedora
on them for my clients, and that works just fine.
but i figure, why waste all that 64-bit computing power, so is there
any compelling reason to *not* upgrade them all to fedora x86_64 for
those courses? that is, are there any real show-stoppers when it
comes to fedora x86_64 that would make that version unusable?
thanks.
...
If you are having students compile stuff, then you need to stick to the
lowest common denominator (32bit) or else they cannot use those compiled
programs elsewhere.
Also, plugins are not the only issue. Sun's Java is only 32bit for x86
arches.
Other apps, like Lotus, which are Java dependent will have issues.
Other commercial apps are likely to be 32bit only.
Until MS and intel force the world to go 64bit, ISVs simply aren't
interested.
The same is true for multi-processing, which has been around for decades
and is ignored by ISVs because MS tools ignore it. And there is no
other SDKs besides those that MS provides, is there?
A bit cynical, and I apologize.
I have been a UNIX Systems Admin for 25 years, and much of that has been
on 64bit (All since 1996) platforms. It makes me itch to run Linux on
32 bit platforms, but that is what we have until the inetl/MS crowd get
serious.
Desktop == 32bit -- so say they :(
For ALL servers, I never hesitate to run 64bit Linux because I can
predict what they will be used for, and Oracle, SAP, etc etc were all
written for 64bit platforms and take advantage of them.
Plus, most servers now days will have more than 3GB RAM, which is the
practical limit for 32bit intel/AMD systems.
One last thing/rant. This 32bit issue is so bad it affects in/AMD
marketing. There are lots of Turion models that don't say 64 in the
name that are 64bit, and there are lots of intel core, and core duo CPUs
that are 32bit only. I have one. :(
Good luck!
