32bit compatibility mode with 64bit distros

[Jerry Feldman]

On Tuesday 07 February 2006 9:25 am, Christopher Chisholm wrote:
> Hey Everyone,
>
> I have a question for everyone out there running x64 distros,
> particularly those that use them in a corporate or otherwise
> professional environment.  When you install, do you generally install
> 32bit compatible mode, or do you run in a pure 64bit environment?
>
> The reason I ask is that the software my company makes utilizes PAM for
> authentication (you may remember my PAM-related e-mail).  The
> authentication module we came up with links with PAM libraries, but
> currently on in 32 bit systems and 64 bit systems with compatibility
> mode.  My boss is really pushing to get our version 3.00 out the door
> (which there will be a free version of- i'll explain more when we're
> closer to release).
>
> I'm wondering if placing a requirement to have 32 bit compatibility mode
> installed would be a huge pain for people, or if this is standard
> practice anyway or no big deal?  Any feedback would be welcome.
I have installed a few SLES9s and RHELs on X86_64 boxes and I don't recall a 
"32 bit compatibility mode" question.  The main difference here is 
installing the 32-bit libraries as well as the 64-bit libraries. 
Additionally, there are some applications that perform better as 32-bit 
applications. Both the AMD64 and the Intel EM64T architectures support 
32-bit compatibility mode. 

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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