[plug] 64-bit annoyances

[Michael]

I've been operating a hybrid 64/32 bit linux distro for years... and
I've probably tried them all. There is up to a 10% improvement across
the board (apparently, don't quote me on that). There's even been a few
proof of concept optimisations showing 400%ish improvement :)

Anyhow, that's besides the point. There is plenty of software (normally
games) that don't have 64 bit binaries, so I normally double up on core
libraries etc. RPM makes life easy there, RPM has biarch support and
it's fully capable of taking care of all of the dependencies etc that go
with it. I note Gentoo still uses x86-compat packages to achieve the
same, though I'm not sure how far that goes with actual applications
etc.

Now the point... :p. I'd like to see biarch support in APT.

Cheers


On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 12:28 +0900, William Kenworthy wrote:
> One of these may help (particularly the wiki) - there are
> ways/workarounds!
> 
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/howtos/index.xml?part=1&chap=2
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_AMD_64
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4614683.html?sid=882ee027fff97617947aff39b0b6a030
> 
> I have two 64 bit machines (one core2duo at work and one amd64 as a
> mythbox) and decided to go 32bit on both to sidestep these problems with
> the idea of upgrading in the future.  However, as gentoo doesnt offer a
> 32->64 upgrade path (requires a reinstall) they will probably stay 32bit
> forever.
> 
> As far as I can see, there is no real everyday performance advantage to
> going 64bit - that is, better than a few % across the board, and there
> are (or were?) applications that ran slower.  I need to be proven wrong
> about this before rebuilding them as 64bit!
> 
> BillK
> 
> On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 20:54 +0900, Jim Householder wrote:
> > Hi
> > 
> > I thought, as long as I'm upgrading, I might as well go 64-bit.  Gentoo
> > on an AMD Athlon 6000+.  Very quick.  Very nice.  But...
> > 
> > Adobe still does not appear to support AMD64 so no flash for web stuff.
> > Brother's cupswrapper for my printer wants csh, which is masked for
> > AMD64, so I cannot use my it (MFC-425CN, which uses the Brother MFC-210C
> > software).
> > 
> > Am I missing something?
> > 
> > Jim
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