Linux Dist for use with 64 Bit AMD System

Jon maddog Hall maddog at li.org
Mon Feb 6 17:11:01 EST 2006


Mark,

I would recommend SuSE or Fedora, particularly SuSE.

You might want to be aware of the email I am forwarding below from Bryan J.
Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org> about the issues of 32 apps and non-segregated
64-bit libraries.

maddog
============================================================================
> OFF-TOPIC:
> FWIW, that wouldn't (yet) be my dream desktop, as I found out
> first-hand. My reasonably-new AMD64-based system is really nice in a
> number of ways, but some video codecs and the Adobe Flash player don't
> run on 64-bit Linux.

Not true!  They sure do run!

As long as you are running them under a 32-bit Firefox, using 32-bit
video players, etc...

Yes, the kernel is a PAE52 (52-bit PAE) "Long Mode" kernel, but it _can_
run 32-bit (and PAE36, 36-bit PAE) applications.

But you can _not_ have PAE52 applications call 32-bit libraries or use
32-bit plug-ins (and vice-versa).  Hence why your application must be
32-bit.

Since the overwhelming majority of distros do _not_ bother to split /lib
(32-bit ix86) and /lib64 (PAE52 x86-64), and they just throw all PAE52
libraries and plug-ins under /lib, that's a major issue.

Fedora and SuSE-based distributions split /lib and /lib64 proper.

Debian still doesn't, but it _does_ have a HOWTO on how to use a chroot
environment for 32-bit apps.

Now I do _disagree_ with some of the Fedora-based distro decisions.
E.g., while they ship a 32-bit HelixPlayer (which can take Real Player
codecs), they do not ship a 32-bit Firefox (only 32-bit Mozilla).

So one of the first things I do on Fedora Core 3+ is remove the x86-64
Firefox and install the i386 Firefox.  I also tap the i386 Livna.ORG
repository instead of the x86-64 one for multimedia.  YUM (in FC3+)
handles i386 v. x86-64 resolution just fine.

-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
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email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
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