Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 13, 2006 04:30 AM
When I bought my amd64 1year and a half ago, I wondered as well if I should install a 32bit or 64bit distro. I decided to install 64bit distro for only one reason: exotism (fun gdb asm output etc.., and 64bits did sound nice back then to play with). I chose gentoo because of the wide package list, and sometimes I need to tweak some source code in some packages. I stumbled upon many problems during my journey simply because nothing is perfect. As a matter of fact, I often cursed myself for installing a 64b distro. However, I can say that after learning the answers to my problems, it's pretty similar to a 32bit system. Mainly everything can be solved by using Gentoo 32bit emulation libraries.. Oh wait, I installed a 64b system to use 32b emul in the end? Now it's starting to sound stupid, right?<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:) I'd say that having problems to overcome can be sometimes entertaining and sometimes plainly boring and frustrating, the point being to learn the arcanes of a distro.
I use extensively the "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~amd64 emerge" to install whatever packages I need. Some break sometimes but it's quite rare nowadays.
the 64bit nvidia drivers and glx works just fine under xorg (nvidia-kernel media-video/nvidia-glx media-video/nvidia-settings). I play enemy territory without problem (games-fps/enemy-territory).
I had some issues with wine indeed, but I tried once cedega and had battlefield working but it was a bit clumsy so i gave up on that one.
for mplayer, I use most of the time the 64 bits version (media-video/mplayer), and for proprietary codecs like quicktime etc, I just use the 32bits mplayer-bin package with win32codecs (media-video/mplayer-bin, media-libs/win32codecs,media-plugins/realvideo-co<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> ecs ).
Having no flash player for bestofgooglevideo.com or youtube is indeed a pain. I always use a 64bit compiled version of firefox (www-client/mozilla-firefox) for my everyday browsing. For flash, I simply use the 32bit emul bin package of firefox provided by www-client/mozilla-firefox-bin (/opt/firefox/firefox) coupled with the net-www/netscape-flash package. That works just fine.
Now, why do I use a 64bit and a 32bit version of firefox instead of only using the 32bit version? Because I am sure that non-exec protection (NX bit) is actually enforced for heap/stack and it's using a 64bit address space as well. It's good enough for me to avoid any firefox public exploit out there.. NX bit is more than enough anyway.
As for the 32bits emulation which I'm really satisfied with under gentoo, I installed all the app-emulation/emul-linux-* packages (see<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-*). 32bit emul USE flags that I set in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/make.conf are emul-linux and emul-linux-x86.
skype (net-im/skype) works just fine using these one.
I'm using as well vmware (app-emulation/vmware-modules, app-emulation/vmware-workstation) to run windows XP, netbsd, solaris 10 operating systems.. I'm happy with it so far, never seen vmware under 32bit emul breaking whatsoever.
as for the speed, I really doubt running 64bit hardly make a noticeable experience for a desktop usage. However, some applications using 64bit optimized/asm code like john-the-ripper do gain in terms of speed. My guess is that video/audio encoding/ripping like ffmpeg/xvid/lame are also significantly faster but I never verified this using fullproof benchmarks.
The main problem with 64bit is that some applications were not portable from 32 to 64 due to bad code habit but it's getting fixed over time as package maintainer get notified of breakage.
If I need to compile a 32bit version of an external program which is not in the gentoo package list, I simple add the "-m32" flag to the CFLAGS in the Makefile. However, each libraries linked to this binary will have to be 32bits as well (emul libs).
I have no experience with ubuntu64 or any other distrib supporting 64bit but I would say that it's pretty much fairly mature under gentoo as of now. That was maybe not the case when I firstly installed it. You basically gain nothing using a 64bit system instead of a 32bit system except for the 'exotism' part of using it, and enjoying (now i'm being ironic) the ride when problems occur. Anyway everyone will eventually move to 64bits..
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To 64 or not to 64?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 13, 2006 04:30 AMOh wait, I installed a 64b system to use 32b emul in the end? Now it's starting to sound stupid, right?<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:) I'd say that having problems to overcome can be sometimes entertaining and sometimes plainly boring and frustrating, the point being to learn the arcanes of a distro.
I use extensively the "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~amd64 emerge" to install whatever packages I need. Some break sometimes but it's quite rare nowadays.
the 64bit nvidia drivers and glx works just fine under xorg (nvidia-kernel media-video/nvidia-glx media-video/nvidia-settings). I play enemy territory without problem (games-fps/enemy-territory).
I had some issues with wine indeed, but I tried once cedega and had battlefield working but it was a bit clumsy so i gave up on that one.
for mplayer, I use most of the time the 64 bits version (media-video/mplayer), and for proprietary codecs like quicktime etc, I just use the 32bits mplayer-bin package with win32codecs (media-video/mplayer-bin, media-libs/win32codecs,media-plugins/realvideo-co<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> ecs ).
Having no flash player for bestofgooglevideo.com or youtube is indeed a pain. I always use a 64bit compiled version of firefox (www-client/mozilla-firefox) for my everyday browsing. For flash, I simply use the 32bit emul bin package of firefox provided by www-client/mozilla-firefox-bin (/opt/firefox/firefox) coupled with the net-www/netscape-flash package. That works just fine.
Now, why do I use a 64bit and a 32bit version of firefox instead of only using the 32bit version? Because I am sure that non-exec protection (NX bit) is actually enforced for heap/stack and it's using a 64bit address space as well. It's good enough for me to avoid any firefox public exploit out there.. NX bit is more than enough anyway.
As for the 32bits emulation which I'm really satisfied with under gentoo, I installed all the
app-emulation/emul-linux-* packages (see<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-*). 32bit emul USE flags that I set in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/make.conf are emul-linux and emul-linux-x86.
skype (net-im/skype) works just fine using these one.
I'm using as well vmware (app-emulation/vmware-modules, app-emulation/vmware-workstation) to run windows XP, netbsd, solaris 10 operating systems.. I'm happy with it so far, never seen vmware under 32bit emul breaking whatsoever.
as for the speed, I really doubt running 64bit hardly make a noticeable experience for a desktop usage. However, some applications using 64bit optimized/asm code like john-the-ripper do gain in terms of speed. My guess is that video/audio encoding/ripping like ffmpeg/xvid/lame are also significantly faster but I never verified this using fullproof benchmarks.
The main problem with 64bit is that some applications were not portable from 32 to 64 due to bad code habit but it's getting fixed over time as package maintainer get notified of breakage.
If I need to compile a 32bit version of an external program which is not in the gentoo package list, I simple add the "-m32" flag to the CFLAGS in the Makefile. However, each libraries linked to this binary will have to be 32bits as well (emul libs).
I have no experience with ubuntu64 or any other distrib supporting 64bit but I would say that it's pretty much fairly mature under gentoo as of now. That was maybe not the case when I firstly installed it. You basically gain nothing using a 64bit system instead of a 32bit system except for the 'exotism' part of using it, and enjoying (now i'm being ironic) the ride when problems occur. Anyway everyone will eventually move to 64bits..
Hope it helps
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