[plug] AMD64 distros

[Cameron Patrick]

James Devenish wrote:

> In message <20040822053218.GC16069 at cp.yi.org>
> on Sun, Aug 22, 2004 at 01:32:18PM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote:
> > Open Office (which doesn't run on 64-bit machines).
> 
> I assume you mean "won't run as a 64-bit application". But why
> on Earth not? I assume you mean there are bugs in it.

Correct, there are bugs in it.  Or more specifically, Open Office is
not highly portable.  I believe that an amd64 port is under way for
the 1.1.0 release, though.

> > Like every 64-bit distro, you can't use a 32-bit 3D games with 64-bit X.
> 
> Why so? (I've never used 32-bit 3D "games" with a 64-bit X server.)

To use Open GL under X, applications need to link to the GLX library,
which usually talks to a kernel module which talks to the hardware.
Generally, the 32-bit GLX library will only want to talk to a 32-bit
kernel and similarly for a 64-bit GLX and 64-bit kernel.  Although it
seems that Nvidia's proprietary drivers are an exception here.

Cameron.